Pepsi gained a tremendous amount of market share in the 1980s. This was in part due to Coca-Cola’s failed launch of New Coke, in part because of an aggressive advertising campaign, and in part because of their Pepsi Challenge.
The Pepsi Challenge was simple. The company set up stands in public places and invited passers-by to take a blind taste test. The participant was asked their favorite cola (“Coke” being the routine answer) and then given a taste of two different colas, each from a separate, unlabeled glass. Then he was asked which he preferred. He chose Pepsi. People almost always choose Pepsi in blind taste tests. That’s because Pepsi is sweeter than Coke, which people prefer. These taste tests were heavily integrated into Pepsi’s marketing, which steadily eroded Coke’s marketing share.
Coca-Cola began to panic. They did the only thing that they could think of, which was to modify the Coke recipe to make it sweeter. With a massive marketing campaign, this was released as New Coke. It was a tremendous failure. People hated it. It was the worst product launch in history.
As Malcom Gladwell explained in “Blink,” Coke’s mistake was in letting Pepsi define the terms of engagement. What the company didn’t understand is that people don’t prefer Pepsi. They prefer a single sip of Pepsi. If people are sent home with a six pack of each, they’ll get through one Pepsi and drink all of the Coca-Cola. The sweetness of Pepsi is preferable in small doses, but twelve ounces of it is not to most people’s liking.
If New Coke was the biggest disaster in marketing history, Coca-Cola Classic was the biggest turnaround success. The original formula was promptly brought back, renamed with the “classic” moniker, and promoted by tapping into nostalgia. The cola wars went on, with Coca-Cola having learned a valuable lesson in product testing.
Things went far worse for Pepsi in Peru. Like many companies looking to expand their market, the cola maker had gone to developing nations to attempt to define themselves as the standard beverage there. They set up the Pepsi Challenge (“El Reto Pepsi”) in Peru, setting up stands throughout Lima to the tune of millions of dollars. As with the U.S. Pepsi Challenge, Peruvians were asked what their favorite cola was, then given the blind taste test, and then told that, in fact, Pepsi was their favorite, not Coca-Cola.
Peruvians did not take kindly to being told they didn’t have the good sense to know their own preferences. In fact, those who took the Pepsi Challenge were pretty damned upset about it. Pepsi’s market share crumbled while the native drink, Inca Kola, took advantage of people’s annoyance to expand their market share. Pepsi wound up with a 3% market share.
In 2004, Democrat Al Weed found himself at the end of a long, uphill race against incumbent Republican Virgil Goode here in Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District. In a last-ditch media effort, the Weed campaign put together an aggressive television advertisement attacking Rep. Goode (1MB WMV).
The thirty second spot lampooned Goode, portraying him as a South Park-style cutout figure, hands waving in the air and shoulders animated into a clueless shrug as a narrator repeatedly described him as “out of touch.” Ironically cheerful music played in the background while on-screen actions were punctuated with sound effects, including a cash register ka-ching as Goode appeared.
I lived in the New River Valley for the bulk of the race, working on my political science degree. The advertisement was the topic of some discussion among fellow political science students at Virginia Tech. While Republicans predictably hated the ad, many Democrats also hated it. They felt that the ad was so disrespectful in its treatment of Rep. Goode that it insulted their intelligence. Forced to choose between Al Weed and their conscience, they chose the latter.
Perhaps the ad had something to do with other voters making the same decision; Goode won with 63% of the vote.
South Dakota governor Mike Rounds signed HB 1215 into law back in March. The new law makes abortion a felony, beginning at fertilization (not conception), with an exception only to save the life of a pregnant woman. This is in blatant and intentional violation of the constitutional which, as decided in Roe v. Wade, protects the right to abortion. Proponents of the bill say that the goal wasn’t actually to put such a ban in place but, rather, for somebody to sue over it, a judge to grant an injunction, and for the case to be appealed up to the Supreme Court where, they hope, Roe would be overturned. What proponents didn’t count on was the voters.
Rather than a lawsuit, citizens chose to make use of South Dakota’s referendum process. They gathered enough signatures to prevent the law from going into effect on July 1, and the law will be put before the voters come the general election in November. If they approve it, it will go into effect. If they don’t, that’s the end of it.
This was not the plan. The South Dakota legislature never wanted to run a ground war. They didn’t even want the law. They just wanted to instigate a lawsuit. The result is very, very bad for those who are pro-birth. Planned Parenthood is thrilled. The National Right to Life Committee is distraught.
Only a tiny minority of the nation actually supports such a draconian ban. While about half of the nation considers themselves “pro-life,” it’s a black-and-white distinction that is a vast oversimplification of their actual position. People’s beliefs about abortion are best placed along a continuum, ranking from 0 to 270 days. Some people believe that abortion should be legal up to one month, or 30 days. Others believe it should be at three months, or 120 days. And so on. I have never heard of anybody who believes it should be at 270 days, or even over 180 days, other than to save the life of the mother. And there is a tiny minority in this nation who believes that abortion should always be illegal.
There is no line separating pro-life individuals from pro-choice people. An opponent of abortion after the first trimester could reasonably call themselves pro-choice, or they could equally reasonably label themselves pro-life. The mistake made by many abortion opponents is assuming that those who call themselves pro-life oppose all abortion all the time. That’s wrong.
Groups working to ensure that HB 1215 is upheld in November have learned that the supposed pro-life majority does not support such a ban. So, in an effort to persuade people, these groups are attempting to convince people that they’re wrong. (“Reversing Roe,” Cynthia Gorey. June 26 2006 New Yorker.)
Many pro-lifers oppose abortion except in cases of rape and incest, with South Dakotan Republicans citing that as why they intend to vote to repeal HB 1215. So supporters of the law are patiently explaining to voters that, in order to be philosophically consistent, it is unreasonable to believe that a fetus has a right to life unless it was conceived in violence. After all, that’s hardly the fetus’ fault. One cannot call oneself pro-life while supporting abortion in cases of rape and incest.
Pro-life voters are not finding this appeal particularly convincing. In fact, being told that they’re wrong is driving them out of the pro-life camp and even the Republican camp. The walls of the tent having being demarcated, these ostensible pro-life voters are finding themselves standing outside in the rain and, worse still, being told they don’t have the good sense to know their own belief structure.
HB 1215’s odds aren’t good.
Waldo,
Are you saying that the Weed campaign in 2004 was telling the voters that they were stupid in that ad? Or is it the basic disrespect shown a sitting Congressman?
I don’t know for sure, but I know the frustration I felt in 2004, working on Al’s campaign as a volunteer, that Virgil would not even debate Al. I hope this year if that happens, a stand-in will not be allowed to debate, and an empty chair with a sign will be where Virgil would be sitting if he had the courage or interest in an actual debate of the issues. I was at at least one debate in Buckingham where a stand-in was present. It was not the same as hearing from the person who is supposedly working for us.
It’s hard to respect someone who won’t participate in the process, and won’t give voters a chance to see him speak (unless they are all Republicans). I agree that the dialogue should be respectful, but if it is a monologue on the part of the challenger, I ask, “What does Virgil have against honest debate?”
Maybe it’s the honest part that is slowing Virgil down.
A bit of each. The presentation of Goode was so over-the-top that for any dispassionate observer to believe that it was a fair and reasonable representation of the man and his positions, they’d have to be a bit lacking upstairs. (No doubt folks like you and I, who had volunteered for Al, were inclined to find it was spot-on. But we’re hardly dispassionate.) That combined with people’s natural inclination to favor their sitting congressman (as Peruvians are inclined to favor their native beverage) may well have served to cement support for Goode.
Goode may well have run ten ads for every one that Al ran — though down in the NRV we were buried in Triplett/Boucher ads, since that’s the Ninth District — so I couldn’t even guess what sort of an impact it actually had.
And in theory that’s exactly what the republicans say, should happen. A state choosing how to deal with a state issue rather than going to the federal government to “fix it.” I say “In theory” only because I’m sure if people didn’t turn out to be as ‘conservative’ as they thought they would be in deciding these state issues at state levels, then they’d all probably get pretty bent outta shape about it.
Actually, New Coke was a huge success for Coca Cola. In the first place, it actually did make them money. People said they hated it and wanted old Coke back, but they bought enough of the new stuff that Coca Cola made a healthy profit on the venture. More importantly, it put Coca Cola in the news in a big way. So that they were able to make a huge PR thing of rolling out ‘Coca Cola Classic.’ How awesome is that? To be able to make massive media event out of ‘introducing’ the same product you’ve been making for the last century or so? Coca Cola’s sales and profits in the US went right up after that.
The success of Coca Cola Classic would not have been possible without the ‘failure’ of New Coke. I’m not sure that there’s a political equivilent of this, but there you have it.
Indeed. That’s what I just wrote.
Oh, I guess I misread “It was a tremendous failure.” My point is that even aside from the launch of Coca Cola Classic, Coke actually made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits on New Coke it’s self. A figure of $200M profit (not just sales) comes to mind, but I don’t have my copy of ‘God, Country and Coca Cola’ handy for reference. People said that they hated it but they bought it anyhow. Whether those sales could have been sustained over another year of offering the product are another question altogether.
No, you failed to continue reading:
Considering that our current law governing abortion rights is predominantly judge-made (which is 100% legitimate, by the way — no disrespect of that is implied here), the policy of seeking to change it via a lawsuit is appropriate. Indeed, that’s only way it could occur, barring a constitutional amendment. The Supreme Court has regularly reversed itself, so it’s not outrageous to think that it could do so again. Activists of all kinds, and on all sides of issues, seek to “create” questions for courts to decide.
I do agree with the idea that to be consistent in a pro-life position means to be opposed to abortion regardless of how the child is conceived (i.e., rape, incest).
In this case, it sure looks like the legislature stepped on their peckers. Thanks for the great post — this is something I’ll keep an eye on.
I like the term pro-birth instead of pro-life. The former is more accurate, actually. The latter insinuates the other side is anti-life–which is not always accurate, actually.
Similarly, I like the term pro-abortion instead of pro-choice. The former is more accurate, and the latter implies that the other side is anti-choice.
How about pro-freedom of religion?
As a buddhist, all life is sacred; so I am agaist abortions personally and in my faith. However, this is NOT an area my government has any business legislating.
I am also deeply disturbed by the enormous and proven power to distract Americans from the open corruption and constant fleecing of the poor by repeated stirring of issues our government has no business being involved in because they are personal and religious matters.
I am calling B.S. on the entire “Pro-Life” movement, the entire anti-gay movement, and the war on drugs, and the war on terrorism; and post-humously on the anti-communist reaction. They are all giant distractions from Americans taking care of each other. They are all inflated and conflated to be government issues, when they should not be.
If you are against abortion, don’t have one. Encourage those you meet not to have one. You must respect that person’s right to choose a religion different than your own though. Government does not have a place in this argument, people do. This argument is a deliberate and expertly applied distraction from more corporate handouts (the recent telecom bill without net-neutrality provisos), stealing from the poor and giving to the rich (the war in Iraq and the tax cut for the wealthy), and keeping wealth and power in the hands of the few (the estate tax repeal attempts).
“Pro-abortion” is a strange label. It sounds as though a person is against reproduction of the human race — like all pregnancies should be aborted!
I am pro-choice. I am pro reproduction of the human race, but acknowledge that there are circumstances under which a woman or girl, in consultation with her physician, will make the difficult decision not to continue with a pregnancy. I think that decision is a private one, and that legislatures should keep their noses out of such medical matters, particularly in the first trimester.
Government does not have a place in this argument
Why not? Government has a place in preserving the inherent rights of its citizens. We have many laws that proscribe certain behaviors where one person interferes with the rights of another.
It is entirely reasonable to believe that all human beings deserve to have those rights protected. The issue is that reasonable people can (and do) disagree on when an entity is a human being.
If you believe that a creature becomes a human being at the moment of birth (and defining that exact moment would be tricky in itself), then the government has no right, under Scott’s analysis, to prevent a pregnant woman from killing her unborn baby the day before it would otherwise be born.
Some people believe that abortion should be legal up to one month, or 30 days. Others believe it should be at three months, or 120 days. And so on. I have never heard of anybody who believes it should be at 270 days
Look up Peter Singer. He has quite a following, particularly among animal rights and pro-abortion extremists, and his kook-factor rivals that of pro-life extremists who seek to murder doctors.
See, this is why I refer to those on the “pro-life” side of the issue as “anti-choice.”
Government has a place in preserving the inherent rights of its citizens.
Publius, your argument suggests that a fetus is the property of the US Government, and that a pregnant woman should have no choice in whether she wants to undergo a nine-month pregnancy or not.
to prevent a pregnant woman from killing her unborn baby the day before it would otherwise be born.
…and here we see a startling lack of understanding of how abortion works. Abstinence-only eduction at work, I presume?
To align oneself with the “pro-life” movement is to side with a large number of extremists who want to restrict access to contraception and turn women into baby-making machines with no other rights; these people are extremely powerful and have done a huge amount of damage to the women’s rights movement and to contemporary human rights in general, and pointing out that a single Australian academic has taken moral relativism to tasteless extremes does not change this fact.
For further reading I cannot recommend highly enough Cristina Page’s How the Pro-choice Movement Saved America. The rights at stake are not those of the fetus, but those of the pregnant women.
It should be noted that, thankfully, these anti-choice efforts are falling through in South Dakota part because the people there don’t actually share such extreme views with the anti-choice fascists. Sometimes it’s hard to remember this, because the anti-choice movement has done such an effective job of re-framing the terms of debate (witness the constant attempts in the media to blur the distinction between contraceptives and abortificants, etc). So I’m glad to see the people of South Dakota coming to their senses and standing up for their rights.
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Like I said I prefer the terms “pro-choice” / “anti-choice” whereas Publius has suggested “Pro-Life” vs “Pro-Abortion,” a dichotomy which fails to take into account any individual’s choice in the matter of what happens to their own bodies. Furthermore, both of Publius’ terms are wildly inaccurate… several “Pro-Life” activists have murdered doctors (Peter Singer hasn’t actually committed infanticide or euthanasia, as far as I know) and their political strategies frequently make people’s lives significantly worse by failing to prevent the spread of STD’s, raising the number of unwanted pregnancies, and forcing women to carry to term pregnancies that are bad for their physical or emotional health. As for “pro-abortion” — not even Peter Singer could be accurate labelled “pro-abortion.” Although there was that incident where the very conservative Bill Bennett openly fantasized about “abort[ing] black babies” [sic] on the air: http://mediamatters.org/items/200509280006
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I still think Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink is transparent, incoherent pop-psychology, though. He condescends to the reader, changes his thesis in every chapter and seems to have few insights apart from “our brains do stuff … isn’t that neat?”
(also I’m amazed that that html above worked on the first try… my internet-fu is weak.)
Singer is a fine example of what happens when somebody slavishly follows their ideals without regard to reality. (See President Bush’s stem cell research veto, along with the Republican votes in the House on the bill, for more of this.) A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.
The US has, by far, the most liberal abortion laws in the world. I’d be so grateful to see us follow the more restrictive pattern of enlightened countries like Britain, France and Sweden; I’d think the “safe/legal/rare” crowd would as well. Not sure how we’ve gotten so far out of step with global opinion on this issue.
From the data that a quick google reveals that we do not have the most liberal abortion laws in the world — not even close.
Abortion is banned in Muslim countries and Catholic countries. In China and India it’s not just legal, but newborns can be killed, as they often are if they’re girls.
Globally, abortion laws are being liberalized. Between 1985-1997, 20 nations liberalized their abortion laws (Canada, Algeria, Cambodia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Spain, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and South Africa). 1 restricted them (Poland).
American Republicans — as with the death penalty and flag-burning — once again find themselves in company with Iran and Syria.
When small girls are sexually molested by a family member or friend they become more sexually active as a teen ( earlier and often, more frequently). A teen girl then acts out on a behavior that was forced upon her. So becoming sexually active at a younger age and more frequently puts her at a greater risk of getting an STI or becoming pregnant.PLUS they are blanketed w/ the teem syndrome of “it can’t happen to me” so they think they will not get pregnant or an STI so forget consistent contraceptive use.
The debate between pro-choice and pro-life will continue forever. My concern is NOT whether it is moral, legal, ethical, whatever…. it is whether a young girl gets pregnant at an age where she isn’t mature herself either physically or emotionally to care for a child and has to endure 9 months of HELL and then labor delivery. And as far as adoption goes…the emotional ramifications on not only the mother but the child are eternal.
Many of you are young enough to remember traversing the mine field that is high school. Try maneuvering your way through school called a slut ( promiscuous young girl), getting pregnant ( stupid, promiscuous girl), girl who gives up child for adoption ( stupid, irresponsible promiscuous young girl), girl who gets an abortion ( her own demons are dealt w/ on her own)What do the guys endure? Well….not a lot. Usually they are “players’ at worst. Heroes at best or just a guy being a guy.
Men really shouldn’t have a say in abortion and men /boys who molest young girls….well the punsihment isn’t harsh enough!
Just the observation of a retired high school teacher.
Publius, your argument suggests that a fetus is the property of the US Government, and that a pregnant woman should have no choice in whether she wants to undergo a nine-month pregnancy or not.
My argument suggests no such thing. I simply refer to our criminal legal system, which is enforced by the government. We have many, many laws that protect one person from injuring another. Our government is the enforcer, that’s all. If the government can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you broke one of those laws against hurting someone else, the government will punish you. The issue is whether or not an unborn child is considered a “person” in the eyes of the law.
Most people happen to believe that an unborn child, moments before it exits his or her mother, deserves consideration as a person, and should not be terminated at the will (or whim) of another person. This is where it gets tricky.
Those who support abortion rights must believe that at some point prior to birth — as Waldo correctly points out, along a spectrum — unborn children are not human beings. This is something that reasonable people can disagree on. Conception? First trimest? Second trimester? A week before birth? My position is that it is totally arbitrary and intellictually dishonest to select a particular point between conception and birth and say, “There! That’s where s/he became a human being.”
As for the second part of your statement — “that a pregnant woman should have no choice in whether she wants to undergo a nine-month pregnancy or not” — I believe that a woman makes the choice whether to become pregnant in the first place, and if she makes that choice, she has assumed a duty to the human being she has created. As far as rape goes, I do not accept that the best solution is to kill the human being that results. The lesser of two evils is for society to compensate the unwilling mother, but allow the child to live.
Anyway, I’m convinced that this whole debate will become moot during our lifetimes. Medical technology — and medical ethics as a necessary consequence — will advance to the point that the practice of abortion is replaced by a practice of removing the unwanted child from the pregnant woman, and giving him or her to couples who wish to adopt.
> I believe that a woman makes the choice whether to become pregnant in the first place, and if she makes that choice, she has assumed a duty to the human being she has created.
Arguments of this kind have nothing to do with ‘saving innocent fetuses’ and everything to do with shaming promiscuous (or even just unmarried) women. Spend any amount of time at an abortion clinic (as a sympathetic observer, not standing outside with a cruel sign), and you’ll realize that women from all ages, classes, races, and situations all, at some point or another, can end up with an unwanted pregnancy. especially if they live in a state where access to contraceptives has been heavily restricted. There’s a world of difference between Bill Napoli’s patriarchal fantasies and the lives of actual women.
> As far as rape goes, I do not accept that the best solution is to kill the human being that results.
What gives you the fucking right to decide this? I’m sure all the women faced with the difficult choice of whether to get an abortion or not are really putting a lot of weight into your opinion on the issue.
If you are a woman who’s been raped and is now pregnant, and you feel that the best thing to do to carry the fetus to term, then I won’t try to stop you. That’s what “freedom of choice” means. If you are anyone else, then it’s not your decision.
The discussion of when a fetus becomes a ‘person’ is a strawman argument that prevents us from talking about what we’re actually talking about. So-called ‘Partial-Birth abortions’ are not happening left and right. Why is it such a big factor that scientists cannot currently figure out when “life” begins? Do you believe that Contraception and Infanticide are the same thing? Because a lot of Anti-Choice activists certainly do. Or at any rate, they claim to, to win more sympathy for their less-than-solid arguments.
> Anyway, I’m convinced that this whole debate will become moot during our lifetimes. Medical technology — and medical ethics as a necessary consequence — will advance to the point that the practice of abortion is replaced that the practice of abortion is replaced
Or, how about this:
We, as a society, make contraception widely and freely available to any and all women without shame or interrogation or religious proselytizing or harrassment, and we make sure than Abortion is widely, legally, and safely available to anyone who might feel the need to have one, without forcing them to consult their spouse or guardian or the government and without making them sit through a waiting period.
Then, only the women who want to be having babies will be having babies, and the ones who don’t will use contraception, and when the contraception fails (as it occasionally does, but not as often as anti-contraceptive propaganda would have you believe), and when those few unexpected and unwanted pregnancies do occur, and the woman in question feels that she wants to have the small clump of cells aborted, then she can do so, and get on with her life, without having to ask you about it first.
That, to me, seems like a simple and clear-cut way to make this debate “moot” without waiting around for your fanciful science-fiction technology idea to magically show up.
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P.S.
Furthermore, I am hardly the first person to point out that the actions of “pro-life” activists have wildly increased both the number of unwanted pregnancies and the number of abortions in this country, and worldwide.
Great analysis
>The discussion of when a fetus becomes a ‘person’ is a strawman argument
Get someone to explain to you what a straw man argument is. (FYI, nothing in this debate so far even remotely qualifies.)
The issue of when a person becomes a person is absolutely the central issue. If our society is dedicated to protecting the rights of human beings, which it arguably is, then determining who IS and who ISN’T a human being is relevant.
Can you tell me precisely when it is ok and when it’s not ok to kill a fetus?
>What gives you the fucking right to decide this?
I’m not seeking to decide anything. I’m simply asking when a person obtains human rights. If you can’t answer that question, then your argument is hollow.
>Furthermore, I am hardly the first person to point out that the actions of “pro-life” activists have wildly increased both the number of unwanted pregnancies and the number of abortions in this country, and worldwide.
OK, now you’re just sounding ignorant. Abortions have gone down. Just two or three years ago a widely reported study that showed a decrease in abortions was presented by ultra-feminists and other abortion supporters as a bad thing. They were downright apoplectic.
Waldo said:
Not even close? That link classifies the US among nations that have the “least restrictive” laws on abortion. A woman in the US can get an abortion at any point of gestation for any reason (see Doe v. Bolton, which described “all factors – physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age – relevant to the well-being of the patient.”)
Which nations do you think have more liberal abortion laws than the US?
Again, didn’t mean to bold the above. I promise I’m not shouting at you. :)
Not to distract from the weighty issue of abortion, I love Inca Kola. I lived in Peru 2003-2004 and spent lengthy deployments there in 2001, and 2002, and and I still keep a large stock at home (keepa you hands offa my stash). I remember the whole Kola war there, and no matter what any of the Gringo-Kolas did or said, no way would most Peruvians opt for anything other than Inca Kola. It’s so significantly different tasting from the two Gringo-Kolas that there’s no way the Pepsi challenge could work there, the whole thing was BS from the get-go and everyone knew it. I remember people saying they told the interviewer they perferred Pepsi for one of two reasons: 1) so as not to offend the interviewer – common behavior there, locals often give the answer they think the other person wants to hear out of politeness, and 2) in the hopes of a small financial reward, which many people there simply expected – it’s a poor country, and every little bit helps. There was more than a little resentment towards the whole thing. Peruvians aren’t stupid, just Peruvian. Particularly as concerns the Quechua-speaking indigenous majority, I got the impression sometimes outsiders (and the upper class Peruvians) regarded them as little more than local fauna, wildlife to be gawked at. On the contrary, they were outstanding Soldiers and Marines.
Coke/Pepsi? Blecccch….prefiero mi Inca kola cada vez!
Okay, Kola rant over, back to more important stuff now.
You know, that whole Inca Kola/Pepsi fiasco as described by Wikipedia sounds a little fishy. First of all, it sounds like Inca Kola has a unique taste, very much unlike the taste of Pepsi — it’s described as tasting like “bubblegum.” Wouldn’t it have been obvious to the taste testers which cola was which, and wouldn’t they then have chosed their “true favorite,” (Inca Kola) and thereby avoided getting their tender sensibilities offended when told they chose Pepsi?
Second of all, Inca Kola is similar in appearance to ginger ale; it’s very easy to visually distinguish from Pepsi. Why didn’t these people just look at the color of the soda, realize it was Inca Kola, and vote accordingly?
I guess Jim addressed this with his two points, but it seems like Pepsi’s big mistake was taking their taste testers’ word at face value, rather than telling them they were stupid.
On the topic of weird, foreign soda from our southern neighbors, if anyone knows where I can get a hold of some Cristal soda I would be forever in your debt. When I was traveling in the Yucatan about 12 years ago the stuff was everywhere and I loved it. It sure looked to be more popular than Coke or Pepsi.
Also I’m shamelessly plugging my new blog at http://rule-303.blogspot.com/
China. India. Bangladesh.
Great story, Jim — thanks for that!
Sex-selective abortion is illegal in India, and abortions after 20 weeks are only allowed in cases where there is a medical emergency.
Sex-selective abortion is also illegal in China. Not to mention that coerced abortion doesn’t really count as “liberal.”
Bangladeshi law only allows abortion in cases where the mother’s life is in danger, and mentrual regulation abortions are only allowed up to eight weeks. A physician who performs an illegal abortion can receive up to seven years in prison.
This is not really debateable. For anyone who supports the right to an abortion, America can’t be beat.
Jon, in India, China, and Bangladesh these laws are not enforced. Much like honor killings — they’re illegal in the sense that there’s a law against them, but those laws are entirely unenforced.
A country that mandates abortions (China) has a far, far more extreme take on abortion than the United States. I understand that it seems to you to be so extreme as to be irrelevant, but on the scale of regard for human life (10 being “it’s human from conception,” 1 being “it’s human when it’s born”), they’d be, like, a -1. “Liberal” might be too weak of a word for that, but I think we can agree that, on the human-life scale, they’d surely rank far, far below the United States.
Remember, too, that there’s not nationwide abortion law to speak of in the United States. Comparing the abortion laws between South Dakota and California (or wherever) reveals great gaps. I’m not really sure of how to compare the U.S. on the whole to other nations — which state do we pick as our basis for comparison?
Waldo:
> but on the scale of regard for human life (10 being “it’s human from conception,” 1 being “it’s human when it’s born”)
Maybe it’s just the way you worded it and this isn’t what you meant, but this statement implies that those on the pro-choice side of the fence have somehow less regard for human life. In fact, it is precisely my regard for human life that leads me to think that safe, legal access to abortion is necessary.
Also I’d disagree that China’s abortion laws are somehow “more liberal” because they advocate infanticide. Even if they’re not enforcing it, telling people to kill their babies is far more “anti-choice” than making it difficult for women to have abortions.
This is why the debate over abortion is so muddled; because it’s constantly framed in terms of “one side wants to save fetuses while the other side wants to kill [sic] them” instead of the far more accurate “one side wants to allow women to make their own choices and the other side wants to force decisions upon them.”
I.Publius:
Fair enough, perhaps “straw man argument” is not the most accurate term to use here, although I still think it applies. What I mean is that the point at which “life begins” will become irrelevent to the debate if access to contraceptives and abortions are readily available, and putting all of our efforts into debating the point at which life begins, at a time when women’s rights are under attack, is hardly constructive, or the best use of our collective time and energy.
The debate over when life begins is not a thing on which intelligent minds can easily agree, but the necessity of reproductive control seems like a thing that we all should be able to agree on very easily. The problem is that unintelligent (or idiologically driven) minds continue to cloud the debate with “straw-man arguments” (yes, i know what it means)such as the myth of the cruel, selfish devil-feminist who enjoys “killing babies” — and intentionally blurring the distinction between intercourse and fertilization and conception, and between contraception and abortion. Anti-choice activists are constantly misreprenting the issue, demonzing their opponents, and ignoring scientific fact because it’s the only way that they can gain support for a movement that most of the country doesn’t actually agree with.
> OK, now you’re just sounding ignorant. Abortions have gone down
There has certainly been an increase in unwanted pregnancies, but whether the rates of abortions performed has increased or decreased differs from state-to-state; depending, presumably, on how readily available abortion is those states. I wouldn’t be shocked to find that the state-by-state distinction relies heavily on economic factors and whether the governments of those states are “red” or “blue,” although I’m having some difficulty googling up a good source for this.
There’s this article (among many others):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/04/AR2006050400820_pf.html
which brings up the important point that more and more women are becoming pregnant with fetuses they do not want to carry to term; poor women, especially, are four times more likely to have an unexpected pregnancy than affluent women. Anti-choice activists are not decreasing the numbers of abortions so much as they are making abortion a thing that only the wealthy have access to: the same thing that conservatives are doing with all health care and all manner of resources, really.
I can’t look at this information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States
without seeing with absolute clarity that Abortion, contraception, and control over one’s reproductive rights are an absolute necessity. This link:
http://plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/medicalinfo/abortion/pub-abortion-prevent.xml
although hardly partisan, spells things out pretty well. And again I’d recommend Cristina Page’s book to any and everyone.
I don’t drink soda so I can’t really weigh in on the merits of particular brands, except to say that in Southern California there’s a ton of Mexican Coca-Cola and Pepsi which, although made by the same respective companies, is apparently a very different drink. Whenever my east coast friends would come to visit they’d always be thrilled they could get Mexican Pepsi everywhere, which is hard to find in the rest of the US, and is apparently much preferred by discerning soda afficianados. So, I guess there’s something good about living in LA.
I was trying to explain things from Jon’s perspective. I agree with you, of course.
James,
I can’t even begin to jump into the weighty discussion of abortion, but I’ll comment on Mexican Pepsi! Actually, I don’t know if it’s Mexican, exactly, but the Coca-Cola AND the Diet Coke we get in Latin America is FAR superior to what we have up here. The Diet Coke (it’s called Coca-Cola Light down there) tastes almost exactly like regular Coke. And ALL of the non-diet sodas are sweetened with sugar, not corn syrup. For my corn-allergic spouse, this was like manna from heaven.
If the religious right would take all the $$$ they spend on politics, and use it for the good of all the children they want to force-birth, they would have more credibility with the masses. Oh, and it would be good for the kids. Imagine that.