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The Meaning and Value of Mercy

Jill

Mary Vargas shares her heartbreaking story about abortion, choice, and why the option must remain open — even late in pregnancy:

When I was 22 weeks pregnant with my very much wanted second son whom we had already named David, he was diagnosed with a fatal form of Potters’ Syndrome. His kidneys had stopped working and atrophied. As a result, his lungs could not develop. We prayed that we could hold him, regardless of disability, but our options were unspeakable.

We could terminate the pregnancy, if we could find doctors and nurses willing to provide care, and if we could pay for it out of pocket, since my husband’s insurance was restricted from covering abortion care. Or we could wait. We could allow our son to suffer without comfort, to feel his bones being crushed and broken in the absence of amniotic fluid, until he died in utero, or at delivery, suffocating to death in the absence of developed lungs. Two specialists confirmed that he had no chance at life.

We struggled with the moral questions, the ethical questions, the religious questions, the practical questions, and how to explain to our living child that his brother would not be coming home. We questioned the meaning and value of mercy.

We “chose” to end the pregnancy – not for us, but because choosing mercy was the only thing we could do for our unborn son. I would have liked to have held him. Yet, I know our decision was the right one for our child. I know because of this experience that many times the choice to terminate a pregnancy is made because a woman values life: because she or her unborn child, or both is dying, or because they are suffering towards no purpose.

It wasn’t a choice I would wish on my worst enemy, but I’m grateful the choice was mine.

50 thoughts on The Meaning and Value of Mercy

  1. Heartbreaking story, another reason why choice just doesn’t quite convey the message all the time. If you have to choose between allowing your newborn baby to suffer a slow and pain death and allowing a mercy killing, is that really a choice at all? If you have to choose between going to work and taking care of yourself or your born children and keeping a pregnancy and not knowing how you’re going to maintain the roof over your head or food in your belly when the pregnancy gets into the final stretch or you go on UNPAID maternity leave- its not a real choice. If you have to choose between continuing a pregnancy you never thought you’d have and becoming a single parent without any resources that’s not a real choice. All of those are simply trying to negotiating which is the elsserof two evils for *you* and not what you really *want*, these are decisions that cis males dont have to worry about because they don’t become pregnant to really have to own making such a decision.

    At the end of the day, even if choosing to have an abortion isn’t some remarkably emotional event for a woman, certainly the fact that she was pregnant when she did NOT want to be is a big enough slight in and of itself to respect her decision to change that as soon as she can.

  2. Yes, Azalea, those are all choices, even if they aren’t good ones. The only thing you HAVE to do is die someday, everything else is a choice.

  3. I had an early abortion, first trimester, just a couple of weeks after I discovered I was pregnant. I was fortunate in that my family supported me and paid for it, and would have helped me raise the child as well.

    However I do not feel it was a choice in the true sense of the word. I was less than 6 months clean from a devastating addiction, and separated from the physically and sexually abusive father of the potential child for just over a month. I had no access to mental health care or recovery support except for NA (which did help immensely, but wouldn’t have been enough to keep me clean during the emotional stresses of a pregnancy) and I could not face being tied to my rapist and abuser for 18 years, or having him raise my child after what he had done to me.

    I too am glad I had a legal choice. I can’t imagine what I would have done in that situation had it not been an option. For me, it wasn’t a choice I would have liked to make. I really wanted that baby, but I couldn’t have that one, at that time. It would have killed me or ruined me, whether we made it through the pregnancy unscathed or not.

    I don’t mean to take away from Ms. Vargas’s story, just to share my own which I feel is in the same vein, just different circumstances.

  4. It’s never an easy ‘choice’ and like previously said, it’s often the lesser of two evils. In the end we just have to do what we can live with. Faced with the choices above, I probably would have done the same. I applaud you for your courage and just goes to show how strong a person can be.

  6. Andrea:
    It was for me.  

    This, exactly. Some women like Mary Vargas have to make really painful choices to end their pregnancy, that’s true. But making the pro-choice fight all about these “difficult choices” or making abortion into “the lesser of two evils” is playing into the anti-choice movement’s moralistic arguments against abortion. Look, abortions are difficult for some people, but also really easy for others. We don’t have to justify abortion rights by saying “oh it was such a difficult choice, I love babies, I am so sad.” Abortion should be legal because no woman should ever be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy, no matter the circumstances. That’s it, plain and simple: no sob stories needed.

  7. Oblio13: Yes, Azalea, those are all choices, even if they aren’t good ones. The only thing you HAVE to do is die someday, everything else is a choice.

    In the vernacular, the word “choice” has strong connotations towards the positive: filet mignon or lobster?—as opposed to “do I eat something today, or do I eat something tomorrow, since I can’t afford to eat both days.”

    The word “choice” is used to shut people up and shut people down. “But, you CHOSE that” or “that was YOUR CHOICE” are expressions meant to silence those who had to choose between two bad, hard roads to take, and are now expected to keep their mouths shut about their pain, fear, anger and struggle in order to make others a little more comfortable about their own lives (or worse, their complicity in an artificial unfairness: see Azalea’s example of keeping a roof over one’s head in late pregnancy, or AK’s lack of mental health care at a very vulnerable time and lack of safety from her abuser).

  8. Oblio13: Yes, Azalea, those are all choices, even if they aren’t good ones. The only thing you HAVE to do is die someday, everything else is a choice.  (Quote this comment?)

    Yeah no pressure there, no difference in choosing between which underwear to put on today vs whether or not to end a much wanted pregnancy or give birth to a child that will die shortly thereafter in a slow and painful way. Nope no difference, no pressure alls fair. Yup. Got it.

  9. Kali: This, exactly. Some women like Mary Vargas have to make really painful choices to end their pregnancy, that’s true. But making the pro-choice fight all about these “difficult choices” or making abortion into “the lesser of two evils” is playing into the anti-choice movement’s moralistic arguments against abortion. Look, abortions are difficult for some people, but also really easy for others. We don’t have to justify abortion rights by saying “oh it was such a difficult choice, I love babies, I am so sad.” Abortion should be legal because no woman should ever be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy, no matter the circumstances. That’s it, plain and simple: no sob stories needed.  (Quote this comment?)

    But abortion is NOT all about ended an UNWANTED pregnancy, sometimes you end a WANTED pregnancy in the first trimester because you know you will NOT make it to the second or third. You choose between having one now or having one later, probably in the ER when your very life or uterus or other organ is on the line. Not every first trimester abortion is about I just dont want to be pregnant. Sometimes its, I want to be pregnant, I want this baby, but I cant afford to be pregnant or raise a baby. My point is, that’s often dismissed in the discussion on abortion.

    Yes for many women it is empowering, it is easy as pie it is wonderful. For others its unfortunately necessary and just because it isn’t medically or mortally necessary doesn’t mean the “choice” was easy or real. If someone is going to kill you and give you the “choice” of dying from a bullet to the head or the gut that’s no real choice because the Pink Elephant in the room is you have no choice in DYING you simply have an OPTION on how its going to happen.

  10. Azalea,

    I think Kali’s point is that the stories that make good press for the pro-choice movement are often those stories that lend themselves to creating “good” women and “bad” women based on why they chose to terminate-it has a moralistic leaning that ultimately isn’t helpful. The dichotomies open the door for anti abortion forces to create loopholes for those “good” women and leaving everyone else out (see: exceptions for mother’s life/baby’s life/rape/incest). Abortion shouldn’t need to be justified by if the pregnancy is wanted or not-it’s really none of our business why a woman chooses to have an abortion/continue a pregnancy-we should be able to respect the privacy of that choice and trust women that they know how to care for themselves.

  11. Azalea,

    The point is that you don’t need these stories to justify the legality of abortion. Abortion should be legal because I (as a woman) should get to make the choice, whether it’s an easy one or a hard one. Whether it’s over a wanted or an unwanted pregnancy. Kali said as much (I heart you Kali). And Kali is right about not reframing the issue using the right’s idea of what is morally correct because then perhaps this woman is allowed an abortion, but I, for example, would not be. I had no such sob story. Just got pregnant when I didn’t want to. No bleeding hearts for me, of course, but I still want my goddamn access.

  12. Azalea:
    Yes for many women it is empowering, it is easy as pie it is wonderful.   

    Are you fucking serious? Umm, I said it wasn’t a hard choice, not that it was easy as fucking pie and fucking WONDERFUL. Fuck you.

  13. Can we not say “sob stories” in reference to stories like the post above? Its condescending. These are very real experiences and incredible heartbreak that some women have to deal with in choosing abortion. I wish for all women that it would be an easy choice, but its not always, and while abortion can be the ideal, easy choice for one it may be the most heart-wrenching choice for another, and both experiences are equally valid and neither deserve to be treated dismissively.

  14. KL, you’re right, should have picked a better word. But calling the decision to have an abortion ‘easy as pie’ and ‘wonderful’? Yea, that was totally not dismissive at all.

  15. Also, and this will be the last double comment, sorry!

    In the quoted article, Vargas writes: “I know because of this experience that many times the choice to terminate a pregnancy is made because a woman values life: because she or her unborn child, or both is dying, or because they are suffering towards no purpose.”

    So say a woman doesn’t have a story as ‘compelling’ as that of Vargas. Say she can’t claim the moral superiority that Vargas has because she’s only terminating a pregnancy because she doesn’t want to be pregnant. What then? Then she doesn’t value life? Then she doesn’t serve as a very good token to try to convince the right that abortion should be legal? It’s bullshit.

  16. Andrea, I agree “easy as pie” and “wonderful” were dismissive, I just felt you had already handled that.

    I believe all women choosing between abortion or birth make the choice based on life. As a society, we like to place value on that choice. For example, a woman choosing abortion because the fetus will suffer in life is considered a more valued choice over say a woman choosing abortion because 9 months of pregnancy would be a physical and emotional hell on her and would lessen her quality of life. Personally, I believe both decisions are made in the best interest of life, society (especially those in the pro-life movement) disagrees. Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer or how to change that. I agree, it is bullshit.

  18. Andrea: Are you fucking serious? Umm, I said it wasn’t a hard choice, not that it was easy as fucking pie and fucking WONDERFUL. Fuck you.  (Quote this comment?)

    Go fuck yourself! If you have nothing other than profane language to offer you can do it without quoting me.

  19. .. Why does it always seem like people forget the case that made abortion legal for everyone in the first trimester in the first place? Roe’s case had nothing to do with any of the so called “special exemptions.”

    It is more than possible to argue the case that people shouldn’t judge women who get abortions, regardless of her reason behind getting that abortion without saying there aren’t any BAD abortions because anytime you abort a wanted pregnancy, that’s a bad abortion. Not because it should not have happened but because we should have advanced to a point in our technology we there should NOT be medically necessary abortions THAT late in a pregnancy in the first place. There should be better options for women who want to continue their pregnancies and sacrificed so much to gestate as far as they had.

    And Andrea (and KL for co-signing) as much as *you* may not like it, there are women who have said their abortions were “easy as pie” many of them used the abortion pill method and said it was no worse than having a period. I wasn’t being dismissive but thank you for once again trying to “put me in my place” but be warned you have no authority to do so and your attempts will never be successful.

  20. *sigh*

    Okay Azalea. Thanks for the warning and for the tone argument. You’re right, as a woman who it seems has never had an abortion, you should totally go around telling other women who have what the experience is like. Don’t let us stop you.

    And furthermore, you’ve set up a dichotomy that’s either ‘abortion is a wrenching, heartbreaking decision’ or ‘abortion is empowering, easy as pie (that is fucking dismissive and offensive, and it doesn’t matter if you refuse to acknowledge that) and wonderful (WONDERFUL?! Really?!).’ So the problem with that should be obvious.

    So how bout you stop undermining the experience of having an abortion by using cutesy euphemisms like ‘easy as pie’ and I won’t try to ‘put you in your place’

  21. Azalea,

    “easy as pie” and “wonderful” come across as dismissive because those statements (specifically wonderful) imply reveling in having an abortion. Please let me know if your experience is different, but in mine no one has ever hoped to get pregnant so they can have an abortion because they are so “wonderful”. No one i know has even come home from having an abortion and said “how wonderful it was”. And while taking the abortion pill and the way it works may be “easy as pie”, we aren’t talking about abortion methods and their difficulty, we’re talking about making the actual choice. The issue is that your response made it sound like for women whom the choice is “easy” (and if i am correct, when Andrea alluded to that, she meant not wanting to be pregnant vs. wanting a baby but the baby wouldn’t survive/threat to health and the like) means they thought it was awesome to get an abortion.

    Like i said earlier, i wish it were an easy decision for all women, and by easy I mean without guilt or fear of judgement for making the best decision for themselves. I believe for most women, we only hope to become pregnant when we want to and because we want a child, and since becoming pregnant and having an abortion means you became pregnant when you did not want or plan to, i don’t know that making the decision to have an abortion will ever be “wonderful” no matter how far society advances.

  22. KL: Azalea,
    “easy as pie” and “wonderful” come across as dismissive because those statements (specifically wonderful) imply reveling in having an abortion. Please let me know if your experience is different, but in mine no one has ever hoped to get pregnant so they can have an abortion because they are so “wonderful”. No one i know has even come home from having an abortion and said “how wonderful it was”. And while taking the abortion pill and the way it works may be “easy as pie”, we aren’t talking about abortion methods and their difficulty, we’re talking about making the actual choice. The issue is that your response made it sound like for women whom the choice is “easy” (and if i am correct, when Andrea alluded to that, she meant not wanting to be pregnant vs. wanting a baby but the baby wouldn’t survive/threat to health and the like) means they thought it was awesome to get an abortion.
      

    Yes.

  23. Andrea: *sigh*Okay Azalea. Thanks for the warning and for the tone argument. You’re right, as a woman who it seems has never had an abortion, you should totally go around telling other women who have what the experience is like. Don’t let us stop you.And furthermore, you’ve set up a dichotomy that’s either ‘abortion is a wrenching, heartbreaking decision’ or ‘abortion is empowering, easy as pie (that is fucking dismissive and offensive, and it doesn’t matter if you refuse to acknowledge that) and wonderful (WONDERFUL?! Really?!).’ So the problem with that should be obvious. So how bout you stop undermining the experience of having an abortion by using cutesy euphemisms like ‘easy as pie’ and I won’t try to ‘put you in your place’  (Quote this comment?)

    No I haven’t had an abortion. But yes people very close to me HAVE had abortions and confided in me what that experience was like. It ranged from easy as pie to almost unbearable. I didn’t say there was no inbetween but *this* post is one of few post that talks about the latter.

    I made a comment referencing the latter and then you bulldozed your way through it with your profanity and attitude like I just slapped you in the face. I didn’t claim to tell you how *you* felt about *your* abortion. I don’t know where you would have came to that conclusion where I was trying to tell *you* how to feel about *your* own experience. But your experience isn’t the sum of everyone else’s either. If there are women who think its easy as pie and I personally know one who does then it not your place to say her experience in inaccurate. It simply isn’t your own.

  24. Azalea, did you not read KL’s very well written explanation about why your continued insistence on using terms like “easy as pie” and “wonderful” to describe abortion are offensive? Or did you read it and decide you just don’t care.

    And this? “I made a comment referencing the latter and then you bulldozed your way through it with your profanity and attitude like I just slapped you in the face.”

    This is a tone argument. It’s also untrue. What you said was: “Yes for many women it is empowering, it is easy as pie it is wonderful.” You were not referencing the heartbreak of aborting a wanted fetus, you were belittling the decision made by women with unwanted pregnancies by calling it “easy as pie” and “wonderful”. And that’s what I take issue with.

    I’m done responding to you now.

  25. Hm. Well. As weird coincidence would have it: When someone close to me had an abortion a number of years ago, they did use the phrase “easy as pie” to describe it – meaning it was a very easy choice at the time and thankfully the procedure itself was not traumatic as well. And then this person ended up having to have another one two years down the road, and it wasn’t easy at all, because the circumstances were very, very different. And now this person’s pregnant with her second child.

    There’s a wide spectrum. That’s why the mainstream abortion debate in the States sucks so much. It doesn’t acknowledge this spectrum.

  27. My abortion was easy as pie. It was a wonderful decision too. There are women on all ends of the spectrum, so how about not dismissing what someone said because you feel it’s dismissive which in turn may feel dismissive to someone like me? There’s enough dismissal for us out there.

  28. Oh for heaven sake. My abortion was easy as well. So was my decision to have it, as I said. What I objected to was Azalea implying that women who had an ‘easy choice’ abortion were enjoying it or found it to be wonderful experience (much as I definitely think it was a wonderful decision for me). See KL’s comment number 21 above for a more eloquent explanation.

  29. I do think there is room for acknowledging and accepting a wide variety of experiences. And I think even this debate oversimplifies the situation. Again, talking about my abortion, it was an easy decision because I KNEW I could not carry it to term. And it really wasn’t overly emotional at the time. It is only as I have looked back and seen the context of it and dealt with emotions pushed aside that I am dealing with some complexities of it, including the fact that it wasn’t really a true choice for me. It was something I dealt with out of necessity, but it wasn’t necessarily a choice I would have made if I had had absolute freedom.

    I am not trying to say all women experience that. In fact quite the opposite, I think abortion is often not nearly the difficult choice it is made out to be. In my later volunteer work in the pro-choice movement, many if not most women I came across were at peace with their decision and were not coerced into it as far as I could see (which is obviously limited).

    But I think it is relevant to discuss how for many women living in poverty, or dealing with abuse, or faced with serious medical issues, or whatever else, it isn’t a totally free choice. Many women have abortions because they have to, because they could not adequately support themselves any existing dependents if they carried the pregnancy to term, or they would be tied into a terrible quality of life in order to survive and keep their child alive, or one or both would have faced undue suffering or death, or any variation of that.

    I do think that is a narrative often missing from popular pro-choice arguments. Probably because most anti-choice folks also tend to be classist and racist and anti-woman and pro-free market and pro-“traditional values,” and the experiences of disadvantaged women don’t usually fit those narratives. But that doesn’t make those experiences any less worthy of being talked about.

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  31. I didnt imply squat. I said for SOME women and because some= more than one and I know a woman and Natalia knows a woman and another woman here said the same damn thing I don’t see what’s wrong besides you taking what I said about some and applying it to your own experience.

    I’m not going to change someone else’s experience because it wasn’t yours.

  32. AK: I do think there is room for acknowledging and accepting a wide variety of experiences. And I think even this debate oversimplifies the situation. Again, talking about my abortion, it was an easy decision because I KNEW I could not carry it to term. And it really wasn’t overly emotional at the time. It is only as I have looked back and seen the context of it and dealt with emotions pushed aside that I am dealing with some complexities of it, including the fact that it wasn’t really a true choice for me. It was something I dealt with out of necessity, but it wasn’t necessarily a choice I would have made if I had had absolute freedom.I am not trying to say all women experience that. In fact quite the opposite, I think abortion is often not nearly the difficult choice it is made out to be. In my later volunteer work in the pro-choice movement, many if not most women I came across were at peace with their decision and were not coerced into it as far as I could see (which is obviously limited).But I think it is relevant to discuss how for many women living in poverty, or dealing with abuse, or faced with serious medical issues, or whatever else, it isn’t a totally free choice. Many women have abortions because they have to, because they could not adequately support themselves any existing dependents if they carried the pregnancy to term, or they would be tied into a terrible quality of life in order to survive and keep their child alive, or one or both would have faced undue suffering or death, or any variation of that.I do think that is a narrative often missing from popular pro-choice arguments. Probably because most anti-choice folks also tend to be classist and racist and anti-woman and pro-free market and pro-”traditional values,” and the experiences of disadvantaged women don’t usually fit those narratives. But that doesn’t make those experiences any less worthy of being talked about.  (Quote this comment?)

    THANK YOU!!!!

  33. I believe you, Natalia. Did she also think it was a wonderful experience?

    I don’t know – maybe. She said it was great to put an end to something that would have otherwise been a complete and total disaster (while getting out of a relationship with a horrorshow-level of abuse, she realized that she was pregnant by her abuser). She said that it made her feel free and safe at the time. It was a period at the end of a terrifying life chapter.

    I understand that this conversation is upsetting you, and I do understand how what Azalea said may have sounded very dismissive to your situation, and I respect that. But people do operate within wildly different contexts, and abortion is no exception, as I have been learning.

  34. I’d also like to point out that it doesn’t sound like she was saying that the actual abortion was easy as pie or wonderful, just the decision and its outcome.

    I was newly married and a first year teacher at the beginning of the economy tanking. My husband was (and still is) unemployed. We got pregnant, but knew that we couldn’t afford it and that we weren’t sure about being parents. It was an easy decision, and while the actual abortion (by pill) was horribly painful, it didn’t last long and the result was being un-pregnant. (Which was, y’know, wonderful.)

    I wish there were more women willing to talk about their experience, and less women willing to shut them down for sharing it. I think the latter would lead to the former.

  35. Personally, I believe both decisions are made in the best interest of life, society (especially those in the pro-life movement) disagrees. Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer or how to change that. I agree, it is bullshit.

    Unfortunately I think that would likely require a shifting of public morals to the degree and of a kind that Nietzsche described. We’re still fundamentally trapped in a system which values sacrifice, which views what is good often to be that which is unpleasant or painful, which calls thinking about quality of life selfish, which values the creation and extension of life as an end in itself above all others.

    The forced-birth movement hates abortion because it breaks the rules. It allows someone to not be subjected to the system. It (to those who can only think in terms of selfishness and sacrifice) allows them to avoid this kind of pain or that by upsetting the natural order of things. Fundamentally the forced-birth movement is pro-suffering and abortion is seen as cheating. Cheating God, cheating fathers, cheating parents of grandchildren. That which enhances life, that which is truly pro-life (in that it serves in the interest of life rather than Christian values) will always be threatening because it challenges the rules and expectations of a system which doesn’t give a damn about life beyond it’s mere capacity to suffer in the name of an illusory good.

  36. William: Unfortunately I think that would likely require a shifting of public morals to the degree and of a kind that Nietzsche described.

    Are you for real? Are you really serious about this? Nietzsche considered things like mercy, compassion, caring for other in the community, caring about and for poor and marginalized people, to be weak and immoral. He would have poor people, PWD, etc driven out of society for the sake of genetic superman purity. With my being trans and PWD, I shudder to think what would happen to me in a world run on Nietzschean ideals.

    Your bringing up Nietzsche as some kind of ideal world is making just sit here and shake with fear, considering who idolized Nietzsche and how many people died at their hands; and it’s really odd that you suggest countering religious authoritarianism by suggesting an authoritarian, eugenicist system to replace it.

    I thought you had compassion, William. Now I wonder.

  37. GallingGalla: considering who idolized Nietzsche and how many people died at their hands

    Idolizing and actually understanding are two different things. Most of that was because of Nietzsche’s sister, Elisabeth, who was an ardent Nazi and misrepresented and changed his work to fit the party, while he has syphilis. This is why Nietzsche was so taboo for a long time in academia, even Foucault didn’t cite him as much as he actually drew on Nietzsche’s work.

    Nietzsche had a lot of personal problems, I don’t think there is any denying he was a raging misogynist. But for example to say he was an anti-Semite makes no sense considering what he said of anti-Semites. A lot of things can get mangled in translations when an staunch Nazi is at the helm.

    What Nietzsche meant when he talked about pro-life is worlds different then the term now, and as William pointed out conforms more to quality of life arguments, then it does to a Christian moralism of self-sacrifice and suffering. Also, the concept of the Übermensch is greatly misunderstood and is tied to Nietzsche’s concept of the death of God. God had, up until that point, facilitated meaning in life by the creation of values. With the death of God, there becomes a risk of nihilism. The Übermensch is simply one who can create values, not from the standpoint of an other worldliness, but from a love of this world and this life. It is not racial or nationalistic.

    Nietzsche was against blind sacrifice in the name of a God and rather promoted a worldly aesthetic. Yes, Nietzsche was quite disdainful of those who rely on values of suffering (namely Christians), but also was quite opposed to domination of any kind, saying that those who dominate are in fact weak themselves and it is only the strong who do not react and do not punish, because they do not need to punish.

    Now you can disagree on these points (or other ones in Nietzsche) or of their feasibility, but I would disagree with what I interpreted as your characterization and intent of his philosophy in general. A lot of people’s problems with Nietzsche come from his polemical style, which might well be a valid criticism, but there has also been a lot of work done with respect to ethics and Nietzsche. I’d say Foucault takes up that in many places, arguing about the genealogy of various power relations and the formations of new value systems, whether they be capitalistic, bio-political, psychiatric etc.

    I’d say we already live in part the world of Nietzsche, complete with the pitfalls of forming domination based values. We are just not as forthcoming about it and, we do a lot of the time rely on moralist value formations, or perhaps we use those as a mask.

  38. Foglet,

    Nietzsche may not have been a Nazi, but his ideas were easily co-oped because both ideas were built on a foundation of dominance by an ethically superior being. The very concept of a superior person, in addition to being wrong, gives intellectual cover to the horrors mentioned by GallingGalla. /derail

  39. At the risk of derailing further (though that seems to imply disruptive where this seems like a civil side conversation), I still would not discount Nietzsche, as he has been highly influential (in my opinion a good way) with many, such as Foucault and in turn Judith Butler and a wealth of other fantastic feminist and queer theorists. I’d also push back on the idea they were easily adopted, unless you count actively co-opting the name and not the philosophy, and making up ideas whole cloth, such as an ethnically superior person. I could say Adam Smith supports neo-liberal policies in Latin America, if I had not actually read his philosophy, or I had an agenda.

    It’s the same reason I would not discount Marxist critiques of capitalism, because of Stalin’s selective appropriation of Marx. I think it would be far more intellectually dishonest to do so.

  40. GG: First and foremost, I apologize if my post was inadvertantly triggering for you. That was certainly not my intent, but I can see how it might have been problematic for someone else. Sometimes I forget that most people’s idea of a good time isn’t charging headlong into often uncomfortable philosophy.

    Your bringing up Nietzsche as some kind of ideal world is making just sit here and shake with fear, considering who idolized Nietzsche and how many people died at their hands; and it’s really odd that you suggest countering religious authoritarianism by suggesting an authoritarian, eugenicist system to replace it.

    At the risk of a derail…I don’t think your impression of Nietzsche is entirely accurate and I suspect that it might be deeply influenced by the horrors committed by people in his name who he actively opposed in his lifetime. Nietzsche was a product of his time, a flawed human being, and an undeniable misanthropist and misogynist. He wasn’t a Nazi (he broke off contact with his sister because of his disgust at her marrying an outspoken anti-Semitic politician) nor was he especially interested in eugenics (he actually had little other than derision for people who spoke of “races” and “peoples” once his thought matured). One doesn’t have to accept the whole of someone’s thought to see something of value in the entire body of a person’s work. Some of Nietzsche’s assumptions and values might have been flawed (although I’d argue that a lot of that was a reflection of his own ressentiment and personal baggage) but he also presented one of the most convincing and powerful counter-arguments to traditional morality in general and religiously-rooted judgement in specific. While he had something of an odd love affair with the dynamics of power and domination he was able to observe I’ve found that his understanding of them (if not his valuation) is pretty critically important. I don’t think that his work is ideal, its a tool that I think is worth critiquing and culling what is useful from what is dangerous. More than that I suspect that if one took Nietzsche’s basic premises of revaluation to heart (as I meant in my post) you’d end up at a place very different from the one Nietzsche envisioned. The core of his philosophy rested on the idea of doing away with judgements based in fear, especially disgust-based judgements of other people based in things we disliked in ourselves. He was wrong about a lot of things, but if we were to rely only upon ideologically pure theorists for useful ideas I fear we’d be left with nothing at all.

    I’d also like to remind you that I’m also a PWD and no stranger to the kinds of violent opposition that mediocre minds can direct at me because of a perceived weakness. We all find what helps us get through the day, for me it has sometimes been Nietzsche, sometimes Foucault, sometimes Freud, or Jung, or Crowley, or Rogers, or Fausto-Sterling. I take what makes sense to me, square it with who I am, and move on the best I can.

    I thought you had compassion, William. Now I wonder.

    And I am deeply sorry that I gave you cause to wonder. I hope that I can do something to solve that in the future. But yeah, I’m going to step away from the derail. Sorry about that, folks.

  41. Unfortunately I think that would likely require a shifting of public morals to the degree and of a kind that Nietzsche described. We’re still fundamentally trapped in a system which values sacrifice, which views what is good often to be that which is unpleasant or painful, which calls thinking about quality of life selfish, which values the creation and extension of life as an end in itself above all others.

    GallingGalla, perhaps including his second sentence would have clarified his position a little? It’s pretty clear that William is opposed to a system in which you sacrifice people or sacrifice quality of life, and opposed to oppressive hierarchies (like those set up by “God” and “Christian values”) — not the kind of opinion I expect out of a Nazi-sympathizer or eugenicist or whatever you were implying about him there.

  42. Bagelsan: The second sentence doesn’t change anything. Nietzsche’s philosophy (regardless of distortion by others or Nietzsche’s own intent) was used as the justification for a political system that murdered 6 million Jews and at least 5 million other people. End of story.

  43. To briefly clarify when I wrote “ethically superior being” I meant ethically, not ethnically. As in morally more valuable or productive.

  44. Bagelsan: The second sentence doesn’t change anything. Nietzsche’s philosophy (regardless of distortion by others or Nietzsche’s own intent) was used as the justification for a political system that murdered 6 million Jews and at least 5 million other people. End of story.

    Thats like blaming Marx for Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot or blaming Darwin for forced sterilization of PWDs in America in the 19th and 20th centuries. I’m not going to continue defending Nietzsche because this doesn’t strike me as the place for it but I will defend myself. I’m sorry if the name triggered something for you, I truly am, but I’m not going to bullied, shamed, or bullshitted into backing off from what I was saying because you don’t like (and apparently haven’t read) one thinker that I tagged in as an aside.

    You’re a hell of a commenter and I like being in a community with you, GallingGalla, but right now you’re being kind of a bully and you really don’t know what you’re talking about. I get why thats happening and I regret that I inadvertently triggered you but I’m not going to curl up and say I regret what I said because I don’t.

  45. I hope we can drop the Nietzsche argument, but William’s point does bring up something I’ve always found interesting, which is that the pro-choice philosophical stance is highly, highly grounded in individual property rights and thus in a way very libertarian. It’s the kind of thing you would expect Ron Paul and the Tea Party taking up (along with free immigration, hahahaha!!) While the American Right claims to be for Freedom, there are a couple of very telling issues where the precise opposite is true.

  47. The earlier argument in this thread is making me think about the places where the personal and the political clash. Politically, in the social sphere, where we are making laws, we have no mechanism to take things on a “case-by-case” basis. It’s a necessity to form social policy with a one-size-fits all approach; there is just no room in our justice system and other social institutions for any other way. So, when people are concerned with how we can tweak our laws, or maintain the status quo, their focus is “how do we shape the law to create the most justice”. Others, who are more personally focused, are thinking in terms of “How do we integrate personal narratives into our society to create the most justice”. I think it creates conflict because people are trying to use the same issue to two different ends.

  48. I’m just literally a fly by nighter passing by this blog but back to the Nietzsche thing – it was actually the Nazi’s who spread the rumour about him having syphillus. It was discovered a few years ago that he actually died of a brain tumour. And the mysogynist chapter in “Beyond Good and Evil”, could it be that he left a couple of clues that point to some possible other layers to what he was saying? Just my out there, denial is a river in Egypt theory, obviously, but it was his naughty book. Maybe, just maybe he was indulging in a bit of shapeshifting. More learning exercise than text. And then there was the horse story which may not be true but which has him seeing a man beating a horse and crossing the road to stop him when he falls into a comatose stupor from which he never recovers. I like the horse story. Dammit, the man was important in the history of free thought.

    I came here via the IBTP facebook page – don’t worry I lied about my birth date (they will never take me alive). I’m trudging back through your annals, Twisty. The chickens breaking up the rabbit fight was literally the most profoundly moving event I have witnessed.

  49. I lost my son in 2009 to potters syndrome, we found out at 20 weeks and the first thing that was said to me regarding his condition was regarding my “options” it’s the most heartbreaking thing to have to sit there and hear your child will die and then have them ask if you want that to happen sooner. I continued the pregnancy till 34wks when I went into labour naturally, he was born alive, he wasn’t struggling or stressed like the article would have you assume, he had no broken bones, no physical trauma. Two paediatricians stood in the corner of the room to help if he started to become stressed but he was just so relaxed. he took a deep breath as my husband cut the cord, i kept touching his cheek to see if he was still warm, i did this until his face went cold. shortly after the paediatrician checked his heartbeat and confirmed he was gone. i still couldn’t believe it, he looked so alive, even as his body turned purple his face was still so bright.
    I’m thankful I didn’t feel pressured to have a hand in his death and i was given the opertunity to do what i felt was best, I know it would be something I’d look back on and feel guilty about and thats the last thing a mother wants to feel regarding the death of her child. Having those weeks between his diagnosis and his arrival were all I could have asked for really, i had time time with him before I had to say goodbye and i wouldnt have had that time if i had ended the pregnancy at 20wks.

    im sorry to jill who had to face the same questions as i did, im sorry to hear your son has also passed. but im glad you feel at peace with your choice because as im sure you know there is no one size fits all option when it comes to a situation like this.

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