In response to the assertion that the surgical procedure known as "abortion" has been linked to the development of cancer of the breast, I will say that, irrespective of whether or not such a link exists, what, to me, the "pro-life" movement fails to understand is that adhering to an abstract morality like "the sanctity of life," as it has to do with abortion rights, is an impossibility for most workers - especially women - who have to struggle with life as they find it. What we workers find is a socioeconomic system that holds millions of human beings in a perpetual state of abject poverty; that allows workers to keep (in the form of wages) but a small fraction of the economic wealth that their labor power and/or their intellectual power produces; that causes the rearing of children to be an economic question with a cost that many cannot possibly bear; that limits the knowledge as well as the means of contraception; that all too often commands overly simplistic abstinence only "educational" programs; that treats workers as commodities which are bought and sold within the labor market just as, say, cattle are bought and sold within the cattle market; and which generally overlooks the working class' real social situation. Moreover and with all due respect, seldom do we hear of the pro-life movement extending its belief in the Right to Life by way of condemning capital punishment, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, militarism in general, etc. In fact, as the late developmental neuropsychologist, Dr. James Prescott, once noted in a study in which he correlated the overall voting patterns of United States senators and congresspeople; members of Congress who stood opposed to abortion rights also possessed a strong tendency to support capital punishment, nuclear power,* nuclear weaponry, increased subsidies for tobacco capitalists, the production of nerve gas, and the then Nicaraguan "Contras" or Somocistas," etc. So too did these senators and members of Congress have a strong tendency to oppose federally-funded school lunch programs, funding increases to the AFDC (Aid For Dependent Children) program, the Clean Air Act and other environmental measures, affirmative action and civil rights legislation, etc. In short, Dr. Prescott's study - The Origins of Human Violence (1986) - revealed that members of Congress who claimed to be "pro-life," as it relates to the issue of abortion, did not exhibit pro-life attitudes in many other aspects of life and human relations, should their voting patterns and assumed worldviews have been any indication. Finally. We Marxists are often accused of being "Utopian dreamers." Yet, unless and until the day comes that sees the elimination of poverty and class rule and of wholly inadequate and dangerous methods of contraception that make abortion care the "necessary 'evil'" that it surely is, it will never end regardless of its legal status at any given time. To be sure, a social revolution is needed to put and end to a socioeconomic system that treats human beings as commodities and that places a price on our lives and activities. For only within a society free of class rule could decisions having to do with child-rearing be freed from the economic constraints that capitalism imposes. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ * To grant a license to operate a commercial nuclear power plant is to also grant a license to commit random mass murder. --the late John W. Gofman, M.D., Irrevy: An Irreverent, Illustrated View of Nuclear Power, South End Press, 1979, 212 pages. ("John W. Gofman [was] Professor Emeritus of Medical Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He [was] both a physician and a doctor of nuclear/physical chemistry. While a graduate student at Berkeley, he [along with the late Dr. Arthur Tamplin] co-discovered Uranium-233, and proved its fissionability: subsequently he developed several of the first methods for isolating plutonium for the Manhattan Project. He [was] Associate Director (1962-69) of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, and founder of the Laboratory's Biomedical Research Division where, at the request of the Atomic Energy Commission [now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission], his program (1963-72) evaluated the role of ionizing radiation in human cancer causation..." (Excerpted from the dust jacket of his book entitled Radiation & Human Health: A comprehensive investigation of the evidence relating low-level radiation to cancer and other diseases, Sierra Club Books, 1980, 908 pages. Yours. GM
Using your argument, slavery was justified in its day too because farmers had to struggle with life as they found it. If they did not plant and harvest their crops in a certain way within a certain time frame, they could not feed their families or sell their crops to meet other basic needs. So they did not have the luxury of worrying about "all men being created equal." Because the system of that day was set up in such a way that they either did what they had to do to survive or they died. This is because you are comparing apples and oranges here. The difference is guilt vs. innocence. I do not expect you to understand this difference since the left wing belief system holds all morality to be subjective so that nothing can ever be objectively wrong (except for conservatism, apparently). But the whole reason sanctity of life is sanctity of life is because we believe in protecting people who haven't done anything wrong. If you violate the code of sanctity of life by intentionally robbing an innocent person of their life, then it is only right that you forfeit your own in exchange. I would actually expect people who are so big on "fairness" to support such an idea. Because it is the ultimate form of equality.
Yes, it is quite true that the vast majority of farmers in the antebellum south were compelled to plant, nurture and "harvest their crops in a certain way and within a certain time frame, [or] they could not feed their families or sell their crops to meet other basic needs." (Emphasis mine.) But that vast majority of farmers were small-scale farmers who could not afford to purchase chattel slaves and who, accordingly, worked their own small plots of land alongside their families and their working animals. As such, these small-scale or petty capitalist farmers were able to produce and thus sell that which met the basic needs of themselves and their families all the while respecting the fact that all human beings "are created equal" - while not practicing chattel slavery. On the other hand, large-scale farmers (what amounted to the farming capitalists of the antebellum south) did not work their own lands simply because they were able to possess chattel slaves and to also employ any number of Caucasian employees or, in a manner of speaking, Caucasian wage slaves. These large-scale "farmers" chose to disrespect the fact that all human beings are "created equal and independent" (Jefferson) simply because they were interested in producing and thus selling much more than that which met their basic needs and that of their dear ones. They were, like modern-day capitalists, also interested in producing economic profit or surplus value (Marx) without having to actually produce much if any of it themselves. Simply stated and with all due respect, they did not have to engage in chattel slavery in order to survive as Unifier alleged. Therefore, I am of the mind that abortion rights cannot be compared to either chattel slavery or wage slavery in this way due to the fact that, in virtually all such cases, women who opt for abortion do so because of the economic constraints imposed upon them by capitalist rule (see parent post) while capitalists choose to exploit other human beings because of greed. In response to my comment concerning what I perceive to be the "pro-life" movement's hypocritical stance vis-a-vis capital punishment, Unifier wrote: Although I am unable to speak for all leftists, this leftist does hold to an objective view of right and wrong. I may stand steadfastly opposed to capital punishment in all cases, as I do, but that does not serve to suggest that I believe that "nothing can ever be objectively wrong," and I do not feel as though other leftists think like that either. Respecting murder, I believe that an individual who has been found guilty of premeditated murder by a jury of his or her peers need be isolated from society for the balance of their days. As for "robbing an innocent person of their life." Is it your belief, Unifier, that, for example, the members of the Ford Motor Company's board of directors who elected not to redesign what came to be known as "the exploding Pinto" robbed twenty-seven (27) innocent people of their lives because of that conscious decision; one firmly rooted in a "cost-'benefit' analysis"? Do you believe, as another example, that certain past Union Carbide officials took the lives of some eleven-thousand innocent people by way of their refusal to make the necessary repairs to their Bhopal, India pesticide plant; an operation they knew to be extremely unsafe and therefore highly likely to explode? Yes, we can and likely will continue to debate - forevermore - what it is that constitutes a human life and whether or not it is acceptable for a woman to abort her pregnancy. But the two questions listed above involve not only the end of the lives of thousands of innocent people, they may also serve to reveal whether or not it is only leftists who choose to cling to a subjective view of right and wrong. Finally, Unifier, won't you please accept my apology for my having taken so very long to respond to your thoughts? Yours. GM
Did you just compare employment to slavery? That demonstrates a total lack of anything resembling common sense or a grasp on reality.
Well, although it is not my intention to diverge from this sub-forum's intended purpose, yes, one could say that I "compare[d] employment to slavery" or, to be more precise, wage slavery to chattel slavery. It is my belief that an economic system (capitalism) that allows workers to keep (in the form of wages) only a small fraction of the economic wealth that they and they alone produce is best described as being but another form of slavery - wage slavery. The difference between wage slavery and chattel slavery being that; rather than how chattel slave masters once payed directly for the cost of such things as housing, clothing and food for their slaves, present-day wage slave masters (capitalists) allow their slaves a "living wage" and perhaps a bit more which enables these "employees" to pay the cost of their basic needs themselves, thereby propping (up) the illusion of freedom. Yes, we wage slaves are free to choose any master that will have us, but we must work for one or the other in order to assure our material survival and that of our loved ones which is the very reason for my having written "the illusion of freedom." And it is that which imposes the material limitations mentioned within this thread's parent post that all too often reduces child-rearing to an economic question and, accordingly, that makes abortion the necessary "evil" that it is. ***** (So as not to "hijack" this forum any further, I will, sometime within the next few days, attempt to address the issue of wage slavery at length and within a more suitable forum.) Good evening. Yours. GM
Marxists are people who seek to understand human history and our human future scientifically, building on Marx as biologists build on Darwin.
Yes but Marx (from what I have read) seemed to say there is no such thing as morality accept what the ruling class proscribes. Is this the case?
No, I don't think so - he tends to take for granted the normal humanist morality of his time, but does begin to show up what we now understand about the way the needs of the ruling class colour all public discourse, what we call 'hegemony' or 'ideology'. The key point about class societies is that many voices - and many moral positions - are not allowed any kind of equal statement/discussion as opposed to those preferred by the capitalists. Look at the American views of 'socialism' on here to see the point: a great many people are not seeing the world to their own advantage.
(How do you do, MegadethFan?) Being both unable and unwilling to speak for all Marxists, I will say that this Marxist views some moral issues to be very objective (e.g., murder and fidelity) and other moral issues to be very subjective. For example: As previously expressed within this thread, I am of the mind that those who are found to be guilty of premeditated murder should be imprisoned for the remainder of their lives (with perhaps some sort of dispensation for juveniles). Yet, as also previously mentioned, I am otherwise of the mind that, as it relates to abortion rights, "the sanctity of life" is an utterly abstract morality in that; under capitalism, the bearing and rearing of children is far too often an economic interrogatory that many workers are simply unable to answer in the affirmative. Consider, too, say, Sub-Saharan Africa where each and every day thousands upon thousands of human beings choose to allow some number of their own children to die of starvation. Now of course virtually all Americans would stand aghast at the very thought of choosing to allow any of their children to die, perhaps most particularly of starvation and, given the material reality of Americans, rightfully so. In much of Sub-Saharan Africa, however, where hundreds of millions of people exist on less than a dollar per day, human beings are faced with an entirely different material reality. Simply stated, extreme poverty compels many in the Third World to allow their children to starve to death - so that others may survive - just as surely as the economic constraints born of capitalism compel many women in the Industrialized World to avail themselves to abortion care even when they wouldn't do so otherwise. So, to answer MegadethFan's question in a more direct fashion, I believe that many of my comrades would agree that, life in this capitalist-dominated world is given to both objectivity and subjectivity. _________________________________________________________________ In response to MegadethFan's "...Marx (from what I have read) seemed to say there is no such thing as morality except for what the ruling class prescribes...Is that the case?" Iolo wrote: Well-said, Iolo. Yes, Dr. Marx did indeed "take for granted the normal humanist morality of his time..." while deeming capitalist-class-prescribed morality (i.e., "the sanctity of life" as it has to do with abortion) "bourgeois morality" or, if you will, abstract morality. And yes, he showed "what we now understand about the way the needs [the narrow self-interests] of the ruling class color all public discourse" by casting aside the ruling-class' moral discourse as being "ideological rubbish" and asserting that revolutionary socialists "do not preach morality." Beyond his public resentment of morality, however, Karl Marx held an equally intense resentment of capitalist-class-rule as well as a ravenous desire for a more benevolent socioeconomic arrangement. Therefore, Marx called for the abolishment of capitalism and for the establishment of socialism/communism for reasons having to do with morality. With that we bring this post full circle; some things are objective while other things are not. Yours. GM
