# A Simple Pill - RU486 approved! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 29, 2000, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014 "2000-09-29T15:33:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/61 "2000-09-30T05:47:45Z")
**milroyj** : > [@](#): > > _(Just a bit of a nitpick here, but if it’s under 49 days old it’s not a fetus, it’s an embryo at most.)_ > > It’s still a human life, though. Nuh-uh, is not! Perhaps reasoning would make your argument more convincing. Whether an embryo counts as “a human life” is hardly a subject of consensus. > [@](#): > > _(Regardless of how you feel about the choice, if it is safer for these women, that’s a good thing. Right?)_ > > So some people are going to commit the morally bankrupt act of ending life, but we should make it easier for them? WTF?\*\* Safer, not easier. I have underlined the word “safer” in the quote to clear up confusion. Of course you would prefer no abortions at all, but if you’re pro-life, shouldn’t you prefer a safe abortion over an unsafe one? ---
**Author:** ![milroyj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@milroyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/milroyj)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/62 "2000-09-30T06:06:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Safer, not easier. I have underlined the word “safer” in the quote to clear up confusion. > > Of course you would prefer no abortions at all, but if you’re pro-life, shouldn’t you prefer a safe abortion over an unsafe one? Of course, it would be safer and easier for terrorists to hijack airplanes if we didnt’t have surveillance and metal detectors. Is that OK with you? ---
**Author:** ![Milossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Milossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milossarian)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/63 "2000-09-30T06:13:10Z")
Thanks, milroy, for helping prove what I suspect, that most pro-lifers are really only viciously supportive of that little, hypothetical life in some woman’s innards. When it gets to actual human beings, their zeal for protection of life seems to often start to wane. If **she** dies, or stands a risk of serious complications, well screw her. The murderess. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Malik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/48db29/32.png) [@Joe\_Malik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Malik)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/64 "2000-09-30T06:19:32Z")
Having gotten very bruised in this fight (partly by the estimable fellow-liberal Jodi (on whom I have a secret crush: A lawyer _and_ a Blackadder fan? Be still my beating heart!)) I’m not going to weigh in here with an actual opinion. However I will note that without a basis for applying empricism, the phrases “morally bankrupt” and “oppressive restrictions” mean little else than “I don’t like it”. In fact, without empricism, I am unable to find _any_ semantic content to most debates on social policy. [shameless plug]I’m attempting to explore the metaphysics of social policy debate in [On what basis should social policy be debated?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=40277). ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/65 "2000-09-30T08:02:19Z")
**milroyj** : > [@](#): > > Of course, it would be safer and easier for terrorists to hijack airplanes if we didnt’t have surveillance and metal detectors. Is that OK with you? So you admit you aren’t really pro-life, then. Please tell me whether you agree with this statement: “If I know that a certain woman is going to have an abortion, and she has the choice between one that might harm or kill her and one that will not, I would rather she have the unsafe one.” I assume you agree. If you do, please do not refer to yourself as pro-life; perhaps “pro-fetus” or “pro-suffering” would be appropriate. If you don’t, please explain how this does not contradict your previous posts. ---
**Author:** ![milroyj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@milroyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/milroyj)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/66 "2000-09-30T10:33:38Z")
I disagree with your premise: > [@](#): > > “If I know that a certain woman is going to have an abortion, and she has the choice between one that might harm or kill her and one that will not, I would rather she have the unsafe one.” Why is your “certain woman” having an abortion at all? And if she is, why should we (society in general) make it easier for her? We could leave all the bank vaults open, to make it easier for robbers, what’s the difference? ---
**Author:** ![Commander\_Fortune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Commander\_Fortune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commander_Fortune)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/67 "2000-09-30T11:02:24Z")
> [@](#): > > Why is your “certain woman” having an abortion at all? Frankly, that is **nobody’s** business but hers. > [@](#): > > And if she is, why should we (society in general) make it easier for her? Well, Miroy, as distasteful as you and many others may find it, it’s her choice. Right now, this is a legal option in our society. Not like bank robbery or terrorism. Thus a comparison between the two isn’t valid. Why shouldn’t we make a legal medical procedure potentially safer and easier? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/68 "2000-09-30T11:51:53Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by Kyberneticist \* \*\* > [@](#): > > Well, you’re already aware of where we pro-choice people stand, and why…\*\* Are you actually stating that all pro-choice people are making the same argument? They’re not even arriving at the same conclusion–I have seen different pro-choice advocates with different “rules” about when life begins. You can state where _you_ stand–and that’s an interesting enough contribution to the debate. But–I will point out yet again–the notion that there’s a single, unified, logically unassailable pro-choice stance that relies not even a little bit on personally accepted axioms…versus…a single, logically barren pro-life stance that is supported ONLY by the axiomatic and religious, well, it’s wrong and already tiresome. Since you asked, and to address your belief, I hold that a being that is moving inexorably toward human consciousness is by definition human. To state that–even if there were a universally accepted test–the being doesn’t have consciousness now, but will have it tomorrow, or next month, or in five minutes–therefore it’s OK to kill that being (but it won’t be after consciousness emerges)–well, that’s inserting the arbitrariness of time into your definition. The fact that you say only a given moment in time–not any past, not any future–defines a being’s worth is, again, arbitrary to me. Just as a hypothetical, let’s say you could be certain that a fetus would gain consciousness as you have defined it in ten seconds–would that change your belief that abortion in the absence of consciousness is always OK? If it were within our power to perform an abortion in that ten seconds, would there be nothing troubling about this? Perhaps not from your perspective. But that’s a real issue for me, and one that seems at times to be ignored when people describe “blobs of tissue” as if this being will not, if left unmolested, change into some other form–and yet never be a “different” entity in the mathematical sense described in the secular argument so often cited in these threads. I realize that there is much (all?) axiomatic in here, just as there is in the notion that only consciousness is a good boundary for human life. And it doesn’t mean we can’t discuss it. But I acknowledge that after a certain point, regardless of which side we discuss, we will arrive at the “Well, that’s what I believe” point. Do you not acknowledge this for your own opinion, Kyberneticist? ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/69 "2000-09-30T12:53:57Z")
**milroyj** : > [@](#): > > _(“If I know that a certain woman is going to have an abortion, and she has the choice between one that might harm or kill her and one that will not, I would rather she have the unsafe one.”)_ > > Why is your “certain woman” having an abortion at all? And if she is, why should we (society in general) make it easier for her? We could leave all the bank vaults open, to make it easier for robbers, what’s the difference? Again, you have mistaken the word “safer” for the word “easier”. They do both end in “er”, so that might have thrown you off… gotta watch out for those! I wasn’t aware that my question was so hard to answer. She is having an abortion because it’s a legal medical procedure that she has chosen to have done. Maybe she was raped. Maybe the child would be born without a head. Who knows? The fact is that she has the legal right to pursue an abortion. And since this is a hypothetical question, let’s say that her mind is made up and nothing you say or do will change the fact that she is going to get an abortion. Now, like I said, she has the choice between a procedure that might harm or kill her and one that will not. Which would you prefer? Do you want her to be harmed or killed? Are you pro-life, or pro-suffering? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/70 "2000-09-30T13:49:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr2001 \* > \*\*Now, like I said, she has the choice between a procedure that might harm or kill her and one that will not. Which would you prefer? > > Do you want her to be harmed or killed? > > Are you pro-life, or pro-suffering?\*\* I am opposed to all abortions for the reasons I’ve stated. Given the outcome, the method is not relevant. I understand your question, though, and it seems to me it’s contructed it in such a circular fashion (e.g., it’s a given she won’t change her mind) that it’s not really fair. I would re-word your question, “given a situation where you have no control or influence over the outcome, and you needn’t be concerned with any other variable, would you prefer that someone blameless (given your criteria) be placed in greater or lesser peril?” OK, but how about expanding the possibilities? Is it reasonable to assume this pill will increase the number of abortions? If surgical abortions are as risky as you indicate (and I don’t question this), don’t some women not pursue them, given no other option? If someone holds that abortion is wrong because it takes human life (a profound suffering–the termination of one’s human existence), isn’t there a compelling argument that says we should pursue whichever minimizes the loss of human life? IOW, aren’t there other things to consider than that which you do in your question? Why does stating opposition to this pill NECESSARILY equate with an apathy to women’s suffering? Can’t I be opposed to this pill and sympathetic to this suffering (just as I am to the suffering of the unborn)? I’m not saying this is my conclusion. I am suggesting, however, that your question–to which there is only one “right” answer–is a bit narrowly constructed, to the point where it’s not meaningful. This is not the simple choice between “suffering” and “no suffering” you offer. You want it to be a “gotcha,” but it’s not. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/71 "2000-09-30T14:47:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Is it reasonable to assume this pill will increase the number of abortions? As I said on the first page of this thread, NO. From [http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000928/ts/abortion\_pill.html](http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000928/ts/abortion_pill.html) > [@](#): > > Health experts note abortions did not increase when RU-486 debuted in France in 1988, or later across Europe. Is this willful delusion, Bob, or do you just not pay attention to the other side? I thought I cleared this issue up 30 posts ago, but I guess I’ll just keep reposting it until it sinks in. ---
**Author:** ![Milossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Milossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milossarian)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/72 "2000-09-30T15:01:50Z")
Bob Cos, milroy - were you really good at dodge-ball in middle school gym class by chance? ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/73 "2000-09-30T15:08:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Drain Bead \* > Is this willful delusion, Bob, or do you just not pay attention to the other side? I thought I cleared this issue up 30 posts ago, but I guess I’ll just keep reposting it until it sinks in. \*\* sorry…don’t think the issue of whether ru-486 will increase the number of abortions or not has been “cleared up” by any stretch of the imagination [http://www.lifeissues.org/ru486/ru00-01.html#Will](http://www.lifeissues.org/ru486/ru00-01.html#Will) ---
**Author:** ![Commander\_Fortune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Commander\_Fortune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commander_Fortune)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/74 "2000-09-30T15:24:29Z")
Thanks for the opposing link Beagledave. It seems to me that the site suggests that abortions will increase in the US is because there will be more abortion providers because of RU486. I don’t know if I necessarily believe that more women will seek abortions simply because there are more abortion providers. Do you know of any links that can back up that idea? ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/75 "2000-09-30T15:49:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Commander Fortune \* > \*\*Thanks for the opposing link Beagledave. > > It seems to me that the site suggests that abortions will increase in the US is because there will be more abortion providers because of RU486. > > I don’t know if I necessarily believe that more women will seek abortions simply because there are more abortion providers. > > Do you know of any links that can back up that idea? > \*\* from the above site … “• A review of the history of the abortion industry in the U.S. during the 1970s demonstrates that adding more abortionists will mean more abortions. In other words, if women have more access to an abortionist, the number of abortions will rise just as they did after the U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.Source for 1982 and 1996 statistics: Stanley K. Henshaw,” Abortion Incidence and Services in the United States, 1995-1996," Family Planning Perspectives, vol. 30, no. 6 (Nov./Dec., 1998), available on the Alan Guttmacher Institute’s web site. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/76 "2000-09-30T16:09:08Z")
There’s some flawed reasoning in comparing potential rise in abortion rates to the numbers after RvW. A. Prior to RvW, abortion was illegal. which means that anyone admitting that they HAD one was admitting a crime. one has to be wary of accepting data based on that. B. Prior to RvW, it was (ahem) again, illegal. which ALSO means that some folks who WOULD have had one prior to RvW were prevented by it’s illegality. This does NOT prove that once you have \*\* more \*\* availability you’ll have more abortions. They weren’t AVAILABLE before. You cannot compare the two situations. C. Prior to RvW, it was (ahem again) illegal, which ALSO means that when they DID occur, they were not in sanitized conditions, which ALSO would have stopped some women who would have WANTED an abortion from getting one. In summation, the dramatic numbers shown right after RvW were a condition of the prior illegality of the act, not a correct prediction of what women MAY do at some point in the future after 30 some years of AVAILABLE and LEGAL abortions. ---
**Author:** ![Commander\_Fortune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Commander\_Fortune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commander_Fortune)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/77 "2000-09-30T16:19:13Z")
Is it untrue that abortion is **more widely available** in this country than it ever has been and yet the abortion rate is at it’s **lowest** ever since RvW? ---
**Author:** ![Satan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/78 "2000-09-30T16:23:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by beagledave \* > > \*\*I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with using cultural norms as my definition for humanity or personhood…don’t think Dred Scott was too keen on it either \*\* Nice Straw Man. > [@](#): > > \*\*To address your reference to God as the ultimate abortionist …if we are to link biological events with Gods will…God is one mean son of a bitch for causing the enormous amount of cancer…deformed babies…and fatherless (or motherless) children in this world > > Perhaps the role of God and “bad things happening to good people” is best left for another thread… \*\* Well, I was being overglib, but the point is this: If well over 50% of fertilized eggs never make it even to the uterine wall, how logical is it to say that is the benchmark for personhood? * * * Yer pal, Satan - Commissioner, [The Teeming Minions](http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/full/show?lid=39428&page=leaguehome) \*TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING: Five months, three weeks, 14 hours, 21 minutes and 23 seconds. 6983 cigarettes not smoked, saving $872.99. Extra time with Drain Bead: 3 weeks, 3 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes. \***“I’m a big Genesis fan.”-David B. _(Amen, brother!)_** ---
**Author:** ![Satan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/79 "2000-09-30T16:27:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bob Cos \* > > \*\*Oh, I dunno…how about, because we’re aware of the fact when a child dies? \*\* You would figure that if a woman had a real person in them who had expired, they would definitely know this. Again, why are we saying a blood clot is human? * * * Yer pal, Satan - Commissioner, [The Teeming Minions](http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/full/show?lid=39428&page=leaguehome) \*TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING: Five months, three weeks, 14 hours, 24 minutes and 47 seconds. 6984 cigarettes not smoked, saving $873.00. Extra time with Drain Bead: 3 weeks, 3 days, 6 hours, 0 minutes. \***“I’m a big Genesis fan.”-David B. _(Amen, brother!)_** ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2000, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014/80 "2000-09-30T16:29:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Commander Fortune \* > \*\*Is it untrue that abortion is **more widely available** in this country than it ever has been and yet the abortion rate is at it’s **lowest** ever since RvW? \*\* The number of abortion providers (especially in rural areas) has decreased in the last few years. There has been a drop in the number of abortions performed over a similar time frame…whether that it is because of less availability OR a drop in teen pregnancy over the same period is a matter of debate. To wrap this to the current OP…most pro life folks that I know who are opposed to ru-486 are opposed because they feel that with easier access to abortion (and no, I don’t mean that the procedure itself will be easier…but that the means for early term abortions will be more widely available) , the numbers of abortions will increase. Obviously, this involves some prediction of future behavior…and pro choice and pro life folks can disagree about that prediction…but to claim that this is an issue that has been “cleared up” is speculative at best [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-pill-ru486-approved/35014.md?page=5)