# Abortion-clinic picketers. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 6, 2011, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935 "2011-05-06T05:57:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 139
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2761 "2011-06-02T19:29:27Z")
It’s fortunate that there are perfectly logically valid pro-choice arguments that consider the question of fetal personhood irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2762 "2011-06-02T19:35:35Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > It’s fortunate that there are perfectly logically valid pro-choice arguments that consider the question of fetal personhood irrelevant. Yeah, but it’s unfortunate that logical and valid arguments don’t always prevail. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2763 "2011-06-02T20:07:43Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Yeah, but it’s unfortunate that logical and valid arguments don’t always prevail. You can basically take any sentence I write in this thread that says “pro-choice” and “fetal personhood” in any combination and reinterpret it as “_ **Zeriel kicks OMG a Giant Tosser** square in the metaphorical nuts._” if it helps. I do it for the love of the game. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2764 "2011-06-02T20:08:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **Omg a Black Conservative** > “Because pregnancy is a unique situation”, and even though it’s true that no one born cand demand a woman “lend” them her body, the unborn can by virtue of being connected to the woman via the umbilical cord, which is a situation distinctly different than that any born person faces. Now this is interesting. All this while you’ve been saying “location” doesn’t matter, and a fetus is the same as a newborn in your analogies, now you’re claiming the umbilical chord grants this human life, more rights than other human beings get? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2765 "2011-06-02T20:36:20Z")
He’s trying to find the distinction _within_ the distinction! It’s the Babushka Doll approach! ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2766 "2011-06-02T20:39:17Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > _Raises hand_ I was an unplanned pregnancy, born to a father who didn’t want me and more or less resented me the whole time I lived with him. It took me decades to get over this, and in some ways I’m still not, at 53 years of age. Yes, it would have been FAR better for me to have not been born then (as opposed to “dead”), as well as better for my parents and the brothers that came after me, but my mother was an idiot. So the question is, why exactly are you still alive? Apparently, you weren’t too unhappy to be alive, seeing as how you kept on living. > [@](#): > > Once again, being pregnant is not an _inconvenience_ - it can be life threatening, or “merely” mess up the health of the woman for life. Even the “easiest” pregnancies carry risks and health issues. Pregnancy _can be_ life threatening, but the majority of pregnancies aren’t and the vast majority of abortions are done for no reason relating to the woman’s health. Seriously. Only 4% of women obtaining an abortion mention health concerns as their primary reason for having an abortion, and only 12% of women mention it at all. And that’s taken from data compiled by a pro-choice group. So, ugh, you might want to try a different argument. > [@](#): > > Once again, you will never be able to prove that even .0001% of abortions are done on a whim, whereas we have been able to prove that almost all are being done for concrete reasons. Erm, you haven’t proven anything. In fact, the _only_ one in this thread to even delve into why women have abortions is me. The rest of you have been pretty content to argue that because it’s the woman’s body she can have an abortion, which would be fine and dandy if the majority of abortions were performed for any reason related to the woman’s body. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your position, we know this is untrue as the majority of abortions are either done for economic reasons completely unrelated to it being her body, or as lifestyle choices. That’s just a simple fact. > [@](#): > > Once again, a fetus is not alive, certainly not in the sense the woman is, so her life, yes, takes precedence over the potential life of a fetus. You know, being 53 and all, I really can’t blame you for not understand science. I’ll probably regret asking this (as I have been any science related question in this thread), but how is a fetus not alive in the same way a woman is? > [@](#): > > Pregnancy & delivery cost a lot of money you know, and also tend to interfere with being able to go to work/school. I guess I must have imagined all those pregnant women when I was in school or whom I’ve seem going to work. Apparently, women can’t do both. Nope. > [@](#): > > There IS no distinction. As long as the fetus is inside of the woman, it has no legal “body”. Really? Well, someone should tell the law that, what with the existence of a Federal law which somehow disagrees with that notion. > [@](#): > > Well, that’s not true. It doesn’t matter if the trespasser is there of his own volition or not, I have a right to remove him from my house if I see fit. I’m pretty sure it does. I’ll tell you what. Go outside and find someone. It can be anyone. Drag them into your place of residence and keep them there for a while. After some extended period of time > [@](#): > > A fetus isn’t an individual. If it was, you’d be hard pressed to not charge a woman who involuntarily miscarries with manslaughter. You’re going to have to explain the existence of fetal homicide laws then. It would seem silly to prosecute someone for the death of a non-individual. > [@](#): > > Almost all of mine. I’ve chosen to believe it is because you have no answer for my witty and highly intelligent posts…😃 Well I’m a respectful guy, so you’re entitled to your own beliefs, no matter how wrong they are. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’ve reread it several times, and I keep coming to the conclusion that you’re saying “You’re different from other members of group _X_, who believe _Y_”. Since I also believe _Y_ (and have said so several times), your observation is incorrect. No, I said you’re different than most members of the group because most members of the group are content to argue that women obtain abortions for reasons which are related to their bodies, whereas you do not. Again, you might want to re-read what I wrote out. > [@](#): > > Even if I was friends with hundreds of them, this doesn’t move me. You can skip further attempts at emotional appeal. You don’t get to pass off being born to parents who want didn’t want you to be some grossly terrible thing, and then when someone asks you how many people you’ve talked to who’ve been born to parents that didn’t want them turn around and say it’s not important because it’s an “emotional appeal”. Yes, it is important because you brought it up. > [@](#): > > I dunno about “infinitely” (it is remotely possible under very specific and unlikely circumstances I would adjust my priorities), but yes. Yes, infinitely. You’ve said, on more than one occassion, that you don’t care why a woman aborts that it’s none of “our” business. If this is true, then you place an infinite amount more weight upon the woman than does the unborn, for abortion will _never_ be deemed as impermissible. > [@](#): > > I’ve no problem with her giving up the child for adoption, if she chooses to see the pregnancy through. I understand this is not uncommon. I see no reason she need be deprived of that choice. You provided two situations by which you used to argue that abortion would be the “better” choice because it would allow the woman economic stability (or whatever it was you’re trying to argue). Giving that child up for adoption would also allow her economic stability, **and** that doesn’t require killing the child. Ergo, abortion shouldn’t be allowed since it results in-- dare I say it?-- the lesser utility of the two (one alive and one dead vs. two alive). > [@](#): > > I’m not sure (2) counts as “indisputable”, but I’ll stipulate it for the moment. It’s a simple scientific fact, which will totally be evidenced (at least in the U.S.) by the fact that if I’m in a car and I hit a pregnant woman who was on her way to the abortion clinic and I kill her unborn child, I’ll probably get slapped with a homicide/murder charge even though she was going to do it herself. [quote] I’d hesitantly agree with (A), pending some clarification about drug legalization (i.e. though I favour drug legalization in principle, I recognize the various harms caused by, say, crystal meth). > [@](#): > > But (B) is way off. Your example doesn’t describe something one does with one’s body, but something one does with someone else’s body. Ummm, no. It’s actually “right on”. Good luck explaining how you can rape someone without the use of one’s own body. It’s-- dare I say it?-- _impossible_. Furthermore, unless you’re some kind of body snatcher, you can possess someone else or you kill the individual prior, you cannot do _with_ their body as you please, but only _to_ their bodies. Raping someone is doing _to_ their body, not doing _with_ their body, much the same way if I were to punch you, kick you or even bite you that would be me doing _to_ you rather than _with_ you. At any rate, I see you didn’t bother with the rest of what I wrote out, quite possibly because what I wrote out is unassailable. If it’s wrong to do _with_ your body because of the way it affects another, yet not wrong to do _to_ your body because it has no effect on another, then the corrollary is that it’s not wrong to do _with_ your body because it has no effect on another yet wrong to do _to_ your body because of the way it affects another. Holding these as true, which virtually everyone does, then abortion should be impermissible because of the effect it has on the unborn. > [@](#): > > And before this inevitably prompts another “but the fetus has a body” objection, I’ve explained that I view pregnancy as an unique and exceptional circumstance. You can choose not to recognize it as such, as is your right, and thus we have an impasse. This isn’t an impasse. This is you, because you have no valid argument as to why abortion should be kept legal without reaching some ridiculous conclusion (i.e., rape should be legal under the basis of bodily autonomy), trying to treat abortion as special so you can apply your own special rules to it. That’s not going to fly, especially since you only give that argument consideration one way. I’ve made this point numerous times, but I’ve yet to see any pro-choicer argue that the unborn should be allowed to use the woman’s body whereas someone who is born should not precisely because the relationship between the unborn and its mother and someone who is born and their mother is different. That’s just more of that patented picking and choosing thing pro-choicers in this thread love to do and continue to do. > [@](#): > > I figure you only added the caveat (and it’s such an improbable unlikely caveat, at that) to avoid answering the question because you can see where it leads - if someone has the right to remove someone from their house, surely a greater justification exists to remove someone from their _body_. Ummm, yeah… The caveat was that the unborn, by definition, cannot be a burglar/tresspasser/intruder any more than can an individual in which you dragged into your house and thusly cannot leave for an extended period of time can be considered to be a burglar/tresspasser/intruder. Just because you don’t like that doesn’t make it untrue and just because you can ignore it doesn’t mean it hasn’t been explained. > [@](#): > > So, no, you didn’t answer the question. I will _assume_, however, that your answer is “yes”, because you have to go to such lengths to seek out a way to say “no”. Indeed I did. Would you like for me to answer it for you _again_? > [@](#): > > I don’t care if pro-choicers assume this of pro-lifers. _ **I** _ am assuming it of _ **you** _. At best, I figure you’re _pretending_ not to know how trying pregnancy can be, shrugging it off as a mere matter of convenience, because it lets you continue to tell yourself that banning abortion will harm no-one. I’m pretty sure I’ve pointed this out before, but you do realize that abortion attitudes don’t vary by gender, correct? This is precisely why I asked you what your argument would be _if_ I were a female and had given birth to two children already, to which you gave me no answer, as if ignoring the question will make it go away. Your argument seems to hinge on the fact that I’m just your average ignorant guy who downplays pregnancy, and is that I were a female I’d argue differently, even though this is simply untrue. > [@](#): > > Indeed it is. So? If you agree that that it’s easy to discredit that unwanted child when it’s not you, then your argument is either callous, as it argues that you can arbitrarily define an individual’s life as not worth living even if that individual would disagree, or it’s disingenuous, as it admits that abortion is morally wrong yet imposes that wrong on an individual anyway. > [@](#): > > When you first asked that question, I honestly thought you were kidding. So there really are people who have survived an abortion? Huh, go figure. Yes, and guess what? **None** of them are pro-choice advocates. Go figure! > [@](#): > > I still don’t see why this gives them any special insight into the issue. I’d rather consider the opinions of social workers, medical doctors, and statisticians and the like who’ve can observe and study the issue dispassionately. This is why being able to compare to other situations is so helpful. In determining whether murder should be allowed, would you give more credence to the murderer or the murdered? In determining whether or not rape should be allowed, would you give more credence to the rapist or the raped? In determining whether or not theft should be allowed, would you give more credence to the thief or the thieved? That’s a rhetorical question, of course, because in each of those instances you would give more credence in determining the legality of an action based on the feelings of the one acted against, not the individual engaging in the specific action. The same _should_ hold true for abortion. That’s why it gives them “special” insight into the situation. As I’ve pointed out about a gajillion times now, an action cannot be rationalized by the individual engaging in it, otherwise things such as murder, rape and theft would necessarily have to be legal so long as the individual engaging in said actions believes their actions to be acceptable. > [@](#): > > Besides, what if one of those survivors eventually has an abortion of her own or makes a pro-choice statement? How much weight would _you_ give it? Have you ever heard of a self-defeating idea or statement? > [@](#): > > You can get any or all of those without banning abortion… No, you can’t, because abortion mitigates those effects. You’ll achieve _better_ results by banning abortion. I know I’ve said this many times now, and each time you’ve ignored it. > [@](#): > > …but let’s assume banning abortion does get you most or all of these. It’s a short-term solution, surely. Except they’re not, and I’d be interested in seeing you prove as much. > [@](#): > > If I was in a him-or-me, life-or-death situation? I’d kill the other person to survive if I had to. I presume he would do the same to me. So let’s be sporting about it - the mother can kill the fetus and the fetus can kill the mother. Go! I’ll bet on the mother, frankly. That’s not the situation. The thing is you don’t know _which_ you are (the killer or the killed). All you know is that if you allow an action (abortion), you’ll either kill someone or someone will kill you. > [@](#): > > My claims always recognize the particular circumstances that distinguish abortion. Your constant omission of this recognition doesn’t serve your argument. In fact, every time you try to reframe my argument without recognizing this distinction, I figure you have _not_ reframed my argument in a honest and complete manner, so I decline to play along with the pretense that you have found flaws in an argument that you can’t even restate accurately. No, your claims recognize that if applied in any arena outside of abortion, they’d come off as stupid. This, whether you like it or not, is the bottom line. This is why you adamantly refuse to take your arguments to their logical conclusion, instead choosing to argue that the logical conclusion. It’d be like this, where you’re the child: Parent: “Why are have you started smoking?” Child: “Because all my friends are doing it!” Parent: "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it? Child: “I’m not talking about jumping off a bridge. I’m talking about smoking! Therefore your question is irrelevent!” I’m sure you realize the deficencies in your own argument/position, but you refuse to acknowledge them instead choosing to argue that any criticism levied against your arguments doesn’t address your actual argument when, in fact, they do. Again, if the majority of pro-choicers in Canada argue as you, you’re in **real** trouble as a movement (much the same way it is in the U.S.). > [@](#): > > This has to be a willful misunderstanding on your part. Other possibilities are even less flattering. There’s no willful misunderstanding here. The same way you don’t take into account the rights and freedoms of the unborn when it comes to abortion in order to argue whether or not allowing or disallowing abortion would result in fewer or more net freedoms, I’m not taking into account the rights and freedoms of the slaves. Either they both count or neither counts. You don’t get to pick and choose. > [@](#): > > Well, if a born person says to a woman “I need to be hooked up to your body for the next nine months”, she can tell them to get lost. She doesn’t have such an easy option with a fetus, but she _can_ choose to abort. In a free society, anyway. But shouldn’t the unborn be given considerations the born isn’t due to pregnancy being such a unique situation and uncomparable to anything else? Or do you those considerations only apply when the woman wants to kill another human being at her whim, which she wouldn’t be able to do outside of abortion? > [@](#): > > You haven’t answered some of my arguments, so I’m not going to bother looking for unanswered arguments of others. Please. I’ve answered _all_ of your arguments, not that it was hard to do (it wasn’t). > [@](#): > > Well, go ahead and try to argue that it is, and see where that takes you. I know you’d get some fervent and instant agreement from one segment of the population. I can only hope the other segment is rational enough to keep you in check. Seeing as how only a minority of respondents (in the U.S., at least) view abortion to _not_ be murder, it wouldn’t be that hard. Only the _irrational_ view abortion as anything other than murder, and to do so they have to try to redefine what murder is. > [@](#): > > Well, option (1) is ridiculous (almost spiteful, actually)… There’s nothing spiteful about it, unless you’re going to argue that abortion would be made illegal at the request of men looking to “get back at women”, which would be a ridiculous notion, to put it mildly. [quote] …and I can vaguely see some justification for (2), though in practice when fathers doesn’t want to support their children, they just… don’t do it. I understand successful pursuing a so-called “deadbeat dad” in court has no guarantees. And a woman who doesn’t want to won’t, either. That still doesn’t explain why number two _shouldn’t_ happen. I eagerly await your response. > [@](#): > > And I don’t see why we can’t have adoption _and_ abortion, nor why we should sacrifice the latter to give a boost to the former. Why do we need adoption **and** abortion, when adoption accomplishes the same thing overall as abortion (especially considering the reasons why women abort) _without_ killing the unborn. > [@](#): > > What happens after a few years when the backlog of adoption-seekers get cleared and the rate of unwanted pregnancies continue (even assuming that this rate is lower than before the ban)? It won’t happen, because the number of children put up for adoption won’t significantly increase. There, however, will be an increase in people _looking_ to adopt. > [@](#): > > How many potential adoptive families are there in the U.S., anyway? More than there are children put up specifically for adoption. > [@](#): > > If you get to define abortion as not natural, I get to define other medical interventions (and indeed any product of 20th- and 21st-century science and technology) as similarly not natural. Fair is fair. Heck, abortion _predates_ the 20th-century, by a considerable margin. You’re not very good with the straw men. You really should work on them, for your sake. Do you seriously not know the difference between a natural abortion, also commonly referred to as a miscarriage, and an artificial abortion? (Continued…) ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2767 "2011-06-02T20:41:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Because allowing it in _all_ circumstances leads to anarchy, while allowing it in abortion does not. Or at least it never has. That doesn’t lead to anarchy (for even anarchies have rules of conduct, even if unwritten); it leads to an untennable situation. > [@](#): > > I seem to recall the American Revolution (in which Jefferson played some minor supporting role) being about throwing off a government that didn’t represent its people. Hmmm… Jefferson owned slaves. Did he ever take his slaves to the voting booth even though it was against the law for them to vote? > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’m tired of playing the loophole game. If it truly is a toothless ban, I figure that means _no_ official from _any_ level of government (federal, state, municipal, county, etc.) can act on it. Otherwise it’s not toothless, by definition. You’re the one who tried laying out how a supposed toothless abortion ban would work. I think it’s funny that you, the individual who were content to go on about the consequences of an action, is now struggling to explain how a ban could be toothless yet the government agency which would be in charge of this toothless ban can somehow ensure the ban remains toothless even though they lack the funds to do so. (I’m sure that’s grammatically incorrect, but I don’t care.) > [@](#): > > Well, before this thread, I’d never _heard_ of it happening, but… okay… I can picture it. Sure, once the fetus is out of her body by whatever process (including an attempted abortion), it’s technically “born” and by the standards I’ve described, killing it is a felony. You never heard of [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Gosnell) guy? > [@](#): > > Yes, but I’m not just making them up, and I figure the severity of these negative effects is in proportion to how energetically a ban is enforced. Except, for the most part, you are. For example, I’ve asked numerous time for you to show me that making abortion legal reduced the poverty rate and that making abortion illegal would increase the poverty rate, but thus far you’ve yet to provide a link, a study, an article or pretty much anything which would source this claim. > [@](#): > > You’re being overly generous about the quality of evidence you’ve brought to this thread. I am? I don’t think so. I gave you a couple of links and you never did respond to them outside of simply casting them aside. For example, abortion legalization causing an increase in risky sexual behavior and a lower contraceptive use rate than otherwise would occur. You think those are of “bad quality”? > [@](#): > > Well, what about [Abortion in Nicaragua](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Nicaragua)? Abortion was legal there prior to 2006 (albeit with some heavy conditions) and illegal afterward. I assume the wiki page itself doesn’t carry much weight as a cite, but it does include a link to a Human Rights Watch document (pdf) titled “ **OVER THEIR DEAD BODIES: Denial of Access to Emergency Obstetric Care and Therapeutic Abortion in Nicaragua** ”, for what it’s worth. > > So picture something like that, scaled up 50 times, for an abortion ban in the U.S. Has anyone here been arguing for a complete ban on abortion for any case? Of course not. But, yeah, I’d picture something like that if there were a complete abortion ban in the U.S. and the U.S. suddenly became a 3rd world country. But what are the chances of either happening? > [@](#): > > I take it I’m supposed to assume some bad things about New York City at this point. And I kinda thought it _was_ a (if not “the”) shining beacon of American society - it’s certainly the economic center and (along with Hollywood) a key cultural center. No. You’re supposed to assume good things about New York City. Consider NYC hands out condoms like candy and there are “reproductive health centers” literally every three blocks, if the pro-choice rhetoric held true, you’d expect the unplanned pregnancy rate, the abortion rate and the STD rate to be ridiculously low. Instead, they’re generally among the highest, if not the highest, in the nation. …And Hollywood is in California. I think you mean Broadway. > [@](#): > > Heck, I’ll even assume it’s 100% true that the sexual habits of Americans will be modified the way you describe. You don’t have to assume. It’s true. Just look at one of the links I posted prior. > [@](#): > > I just don’t see why you’d want to do that. And I figure the resulting negatives aren’t worth it. And your country already tried that, back before _Roe_. Teenage girls were _still_ “getting in trouble”, STD’s ran free, and everything was paradise, I guess you’re assuming. And yet they occurred at a much lower _rate_, which is the important point you’re ignoring, then vs. now. > [@](#): > > There are other potential explanations, including that pro-lifers can more easily organize their forces because of the internet and this organization makes them seem more numerous than they are. Also, that they’ve concentrated their efforts on individual states where success is more likely and largely given up on creating a national consensus. No, it’s because pro-lifers tend to focus on those things which society cares more about while pro-choicers tend to focus on things society does not. > [@](#): > > The two social attitude constructs that have become more closely correlated with abortion attitudes are attitudes > toward sexuality and belief about the sanctity of human life. These are the two central issues that have been emphasized by pro-life media campaigns (Ferree, 1998). The pro-choice movement, on the other hand, has focused on the claims that > legal abortion is an entitlement of the right to privacy, that the state should not be coopted by religious views, and that abortion is necessary for gender equality (Ferree, 1998). Our results indicate the correlates that increase in > strength are sexual liberalism and belief in sanctity of human life, the values that have been emphasized by the pro-life movement. The frames most utilized by the pro-choice movement, feminism and religiosity, have remained stable or weakened in their association with abortion attitudes. The influence of the pro-life movement is strengthened by > the fact that people with passionate pro-life views are more likely to translate their beliefs into political activism than are those with equally extreme pro-choice beliefs (Verba et al., 1995). > > …It seems that the apparent stagnation in attitudes toward legal abortion can be understood as the outcome of several social phenomena. First, public opinion has responded to the broader cultural themes raised by the pro-life movement more than to those emphasized by the pro-choice movement. Hence, gender equality has become generally accepted as a social value (Jelen, 1997), but the mainstream acceptance of feminist principles has not led to increasing approval of abortion, even though the pro-choice movement has attempted to link these two issues. Second, public opinion has moved in the direction of becoming more “progressive” on the two issues that have become aligned with abortion attitudes: belief in the sanctity of human life and sexual liberalism. The net result of these separate trends is that the pro-life movement has had relatively more success in defining the terms of the debate, but that success has not led to broad-based opposition to abortion. ^ > [@](#): > > If I had to guess, I could picture opposition to abortion following a similar path as opposition to gay marriage - short-term successes but time isn’t on their side. You’d guess wrong. > [@](#): > > The effect of age on attitudes toward abortion shows an interesting pattern. While bivariate analysis suggests that older people are less likely than younger people to approve of abortion rights (Ladd and Bowman, 1997), multivariate analysis reveals that this pattern is reversed after controlling for other socioeconomic and attitudinal variables (Kenny, 1993). In fact, ceteris paribus, older people are more accepting of abortion than their younger counterparts. > > With the exception of the period from 1982 to 1985, where older people are more opposed to abortion than younger > people in Model 1, age is significant only in the full model, and is consistently positive in its association with abortion approval, indicating that after controlling for other factors, older people are more approving of abortion than younger people. Granted, it’s a slow pattern, but a not so favorable one for those who favor abortion rights. Just gotta’ wait for all the die hard pro-aborts to die off 😃 [Link for the above two quotations](http://www.michelepolak.com/200fall10/Weekly_Schedule_files/Strickler.pdf) > [@](#): > > I do not ignore the unborn’s existence, but I do find other elements more significant. So in what circumstance does abortion become impermissible? If you can’t argue there is one then, as it relates to abortion, you discredit the existence of the unborn as his or her existence does not affect whether or not abortion is impermissible or not. (And, yes, I’ll wait for the smart alecky response.) [quote[And in case, I’m quite confident I never said it was absolute. If I said so at some point, I admit that it was in error. It is _not_ absolute.[/quote] If it’s not absolute, then how can it be used as a means by which to argue abortion should be legal, since by your own admission, it can be violated? > [@](#): > > Because the alternative, where no individual is allowed to rationalize anything, is preposterous. It’s not perposterous. You can only act in a certain manner because the law allows you to. Only in the case of abortion are people allowed to rationalize the permissibility of that act for themselves where that act results in harm being brought to another. > [@](#): > > If you’re conceding these points, can I assume you’re not going to demand any more cites for them? When have I ever demanded a cite asking whether or not some women would die from an illegal abortion? Didn’t I, like, totally say that given the large sample size that there’d invariably be one woman who would kill herself trying to abort? > [@](#): > > Oh, you’re such an internet tough guy, calling me “queasy”. You brought up the idea of betting on it. So name your stakes and I’ll mull over whether I’m interested or not. And before you start implying cowardice, be advised that I’m posting here under my real name and you are not. Ummm, yeah. Internet tough guy, I am lol. You said you weren’t comfortable betting on whether or not someone would committ murder. I asked why not, since you initially brought up someone murdering an OB/GYN. > [@](#): > > Really? That’s important to you? Why? Prove it. “Because it is.” > [@](#): > > If you can’t prove it, you can’t object when someone suggests laws be passed authorizing your enslavement, rape and murder. I won’t object so long as they, themselves, agree that they can also be enslaved, raped or murdered 😉 > [@](#): > > I’ll bet that I’d choose neither, and I’d win. I’m sure you’d rather choose neither, but we’re assuming you have to choose one. I know which one you’d choose but don’t worry. I won’t make a big dead of it. [QUOTE=tumbleddown] Yes, because what you’re proposing to do involves other people’s bodies. [/quote] Ummm, no. Since when is it illegal to have sex with someone who consented to you having sex with them (provided they’re over age, of course)? It’s not. What’s being restricted is what you can do with _your_ body, which in this case “sell” it for sex. But feel free to ignore this. > [@](#): > > If you sit at the side of the road and hold up a sign that says “will masturbate for you for money” depending on jurisdictional squibbles, it’d be hard to charge you with anything. (See: perfectly legal peep show theatres.) Oh? You should try it and see what happens. I’ll go out on a not-so-big limb here and guess if you were to sit on the side of the road with such a sing, > [@](#): > > Not for snorting the coke, for having the coke. It’s not the act that’s illegal. This isn’t quite true. In general, people who get caught with an illegal substance either get charged with possession or distribution, but people do and can be charged with use. For example, assuming I was snorting coke, even if I dispose of the evidence beforehand, if a cop or other law enforcement agent can prove that I’m under the influence of some illegal substance, they can cart me off to jail. But feel free to ignore this. > [@](#): > > Depends on how you do it. If it’s a professional BDSM practitioner strapping you to a cross and beating you with a cat o’nine tails until you cry, bleed and beg for more, probably not. If it’s the corner thug who beats you up in public, yes, possibly so. Again, this is an event which doesn’t just involve something happening within the confines of your own body. If, as you want to (incorrectly) contend, youI have the right to decide what happens to my body, then it doesn’t matter how someone beats me up, so long as I agree to it. But we all know this is false as you cannot pay someone to beat you up. I mean, hell. Even forgetting paying someone to beat you up, I could have just mentioned the fact that you can’t pay someone to kill you as if they do _they’ll_ go to jail even though they were operating according to your wishes and only doing what you allowed them to do. But feel free to ignore this. > [@](#): > > You cannot provide a single example of a person being prohibited from any act which enables them to control the status and integrity of their own body. If you want to ignore the previous three or four examples then, yes, you’re right. > [@](#): > > People are permitted (sometimes court-ordered) to remove cancerous growths. Barring trespassing issues, a person would not be prosecuted for killing an animal on the endangered species list, or for “hunting out of season” if the animal was attacking them. If a man forces his penis into my mouth, I’m not going to be arrested if I bite it off, even if he subsequently dies from the wound. So are we back to equating abortion with self-defense? Because if so, I’ll point you to the post I made about self-defense. > [@](#): > > I can pay someone to split my tongue in two, like a snake’s. I can have my fingers fused, my earlobe and septum piercings stretched until I can fit my fist through the holes, my entire epidermis covered in tattoos. I have no life-threatening illnesses, but just the same have an advanced directive that says I am to be given no ventilators, no defibrillation, definitely never a feeding tube or anything of the sort; I am to be given comfort measures and allowed to die. And I have every legal expectation for that directive to be followed to the letter, because I have the right to determine what happens to my body, even if it “hastens” my own death. And? No one said that there weren’t certain things you could allow to happen to you. Arguing otherwise would be absurd. > [@](#): > > Whatever rights you want to assign to a non-sentient, non-viable zygotic entity which may not even have a fully formed brain, what you have failed to show in your many, many, many posts is any proof, legal or otherwise, that said embryonic/fetal rights trump my right to remove contents from my uterus if I feel it necessary. I obviously have the right to control the contents of my uterus: I’m having its current contents (a series of fibroids) removed in two weeks. Demonstrate with something beyond your opinion that I no longer have the right to control my uterus when the contents happen to be fetal tissue rather than fibroids. That is my challenge to you. Show me some kind of proof, some kind of anything that supports civil law suspending my rights to control my uterus. So you want me to prove your opinion that you have the right to (apparently) always remove whatever from the contents of your uterus because it’s non-sentient, non-viable and without a fully form brain wrong? Ehhh, all right. I’ll play along. “In the U.S., abortions become impermissible after 24 weeks.” Hey, look. Proof! So what do I win? It’s funny to me how you mentioned opinions since it’s pro-choicers mainly relying on opinion to make their point. I mean, in all honesty, if your argument has been relegated down to one of “Prove my opinion wrong with facts!” then you’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to justifications for abortion. It’s even funnier since your entire justification seems to be contingent on what is (while ignoring what isn’t, mind you), which would mean that if what is changes that so to would your argument in favor of abortion. But I’m probably just speaking to myself, given as how insanely complicated it is. (Also, and I’m going to regret this as the scientific understanding of pro-choicers in this thread is downright abyssmal, a fetus is never tissue. Since you believe otherwise, care to tell me what kind of tissue it is?) ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2768 "2011-06-02T21:04:57Z")
Clarence Thomas is posting here. (When he’s not checking out porn.) ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2769 "2011-06-02T21:19:22Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > So the question is, why exactly are you still alive? Apparently, you weren’t too unhappy to be alive, seeing as how you kept on living. Interesting false conclusion based on little information - is that how you come to all of your conclusions? I am still alive because I was afraid to die, or rather I was afraid of the pain involved and/or messing it up and making things even worse for me. Besides, as you should well know, the question wasn’t why did I manage to live long enough to get to a place where I felt my life had value, the question was is it better for a pregnancy to be terminated if the child is unwanted and likely to suffer for it. > [@](#): > > Pregnancy _can be_ life threatening, but the majority of pregnancies aren’t and the vast majority of abortions are done for no reason relating to the woman’s health. Seriously. Only 4% of women obtaining an abortion mention health concerns as their primary reason for having an abortion, and only 12% of women mention it at all. And that’s taken from data compiled by a pro-choice group. So, ugh, you might want to try a different argument. You might want to try reading what you wrote prior to this, what I responded to. You claimed that women are getting abortions because pregnancy is inconvenient, which just isn’t true if for no other reason that zealots like you have made getting an abortion very inconvenient for many women. 4% of women are probably the ones who had a good chance of dying or being severely affected healthwise by a pregnancy, but that doesn’t mean that any pregnancy can be viewed as merely inconvenient. > [@](#): > > Erm, you haven’t proven anything. In fact, the _only_ one in this thread to even delve into why women have abortions is me. The rest of you have been pretty content to argue that because it’s the woman’s body she can have an abortion, which would be fine and dandy if the majority of abortions were performed for any reason related to the woman’s body. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your position, we know this is untrue as the majority of abortions are either done for economic reasons completely unrelated to it being her body, or as lifestyle choices. That’s just a simple fact. So, then you agree that few enough abortions as to approach zero are done on a whim, right? As for it involving her body, no matter what the reason is she wants an abortion, it is still her body that you are trying to hijack. > [@](#): > > You know, being 53 and all, I really can’t blame you for not understand science. I’ll probably regret asking this (as I have been any science related question in this thread), but how is a fetus not alive in the same way a woman is? Seriously? How about in the early stages it doesn’t have much difference from a cancer cell, and at the point most abortions are done it cannot breathe, doesn’t have much in the way of internal organs, and must act as a parasite in order to get nutrients and to relieve itself of waste. It cannot feel or hear, it has no emotions. You did note that I said that a fetus in not alive _in the same way_ a woman is, right? An ant is also not alive in the same way, and I’d say that a fetus has less “life” than any given ant does. > [@](#): > > I guess I must have imagined all those pregnant women when I was in school or whom I’ve seem going to work. Apparently, women can’t do both. Nope. English isn’t your primary language? I said it tends to interfere with working or going to school, not that it cannot be done. And as for pregnant women in the workplace, no body on this message board wants me to get started on the lack of value the average pregnant woman gives to the office… > [@](#): > > Really? Well, someone should tell the law that, what with the existence of a Federal law which somehow disagrees with that notion. What federal law considers the fetus to have the same body as a woman? > [@](#): > > I’m pretty sure it does. I’ll tell you what. Go outside and find someone. It can be anyone. Drag them into your place of residence and keep them there for a while. After some extended period of time Apparently you figured out that you were on the wrong side of intelligent on this one, since you didn’t finish whatever you were going to say about me evicting someone from my home. > [@](#): > > You’re going to have to explain the existence of fetal homicide laws then. It would seem silly to prosecute someone for the death of a non-individual. Those would be for those fetuses who were killed during the commission of a crime and the woman wanted to continue the pregnancy. Basically, those are property laws wound up with whatever damage is done to the woman’s body and inserted into whatever other crime was going on to induce the death of the fetus. As I said, the fetus isn’t an individual, so it doesn’t have the rights to the regular homicide laws. > [@](#): > > Well I’m a respectful guy, so you’re entitled to your own beliefs, no matter how wrong they are. The first part of that sentence seriously disagrees with the second part.. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2770 "2011-06-02T21:21:27Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > He’s trying to find the distinction _within_ the distinction! It’s the Babushka Doll approach! I think you need to ask why that matters. Seems only fair. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2771 "2011-06-02T21:39:03Z")
I started to type out something long but then I figured, why bother? I’ll just respond to the end, since that’ spretty much the only thing where I won’t be repeating myself. > [@cosmosdan](#): > > There’s nothing the least bit odd about it. It’s a widely accepted principle for anybody that understands the nature of polls. I provided a link explaining that. [Here’s another](http://thisnation.com/question/002.html) > > I ask you again to provide any cite where a credible source promotes public opinion polls as proof of anything. If you cannot then your use of “proof” in this case really amounts to your personal opinion. Uh-huh. It’s odd (well, maybe I should say **amazing** ) to me that in order to try to discredit the polls I provided, which look at whether abortions should be allowed in specific instances, you make reference to polls which don’t spell out the parameters (either by what they mean by “most”, “sometimes”, “depends”, etc.) or don’t spell out what restrictions they are talking about. I’m not sure how that makes any sense but it’s you we’re talking about so I’m not going to try to make sense of it. Typically, I don’t cite [Religious Tolerance](http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_poll0.htm) but in this case, I’ll make an exception. > [@](#): > > The ideal poll: > > In the author’s opinion, the best polling technique would be for the agency to pose a number of situations to their subjects – **describing a scenario that a pregnant woman might find herself in, and asking if the woman should be allowed to have an abortion if she wishes one**. > > …And, most important, the identical survey would be conducted on a yearly basis so that long-term trends could be determined. Funny. Didn’t I provide you with polls looking at whether or not abortion should be legal or not in _specific_ instances? Doesn’t the GSS, which I linked to you and which you instantly discredited as biased, measure people’s attitudes for abortion in certain circumstances yearly? Indeed, I did though you disagreed with my conclusion. Of course, I’ve asked you to show me similiar polls which prove your position, but you cannot, on account of them-- _drumroll_– **NOT EXISTING**! And because you know they don’t exist, you try to call into question the polls I gave you by giving me polls which either don’t spell out what “most/sometimes” are, but don’t spell out what restrictions are being talked about. Go figure, huh? The simple fact is that you could spend all day of every day trying to find a poll which says, for example, that when given the choice, they would allow a woman to abort for \ (i.e., "because she wants to hold a career), but you’d not find it, whereas I can point to numerous polls which, when asked specifically whether or not a woman should be able to have an abortion in a specific circumstance (i.e., because she can’t afford to have a baby, the majority of Americans say no. Again, this is a well known fact and is evidenced by the fact that pro-choicers don’t want Roe v. Wade overturned because abortions would end up far more restricted than they are now. But hey… Willful ignorance is a powerful thing, generally only beaten by death. > [@cosmosdan](#): > > Now this is interesting. All this while you’ve been saying “location” doesn’t matter, and a fetus is the same as a newborn in your analogies, now you’re claiming the umbilical chord grants this human life, more rights than other human beings get? …Yeah. That’s precisely what I said. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2772 "2011-06-02T22:00:10Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Interesting false conclusion based on little information - is that how you come to all of your conclusions? I am still alive because I was afraid to die, or rather I was afraid of the pain involved and/or messing it up and making things even worse for me. 'Tis not a false conclusion. You said it yourself; because, for whatever reason, you’d rather be alive now. Anyone who truly wanted to be dead would be or would have already tried. As callous as it sounds, it’s just a cold hard fact. > [@](#): > > Besides, as you should well know, the question wasn’t why did I manage to live long enough to get to a place where I felt my life had value, the question was is it better for a pregnancy to be terminated if the child is unwanted and likely to suffer for it. Not really, but close enough I won’t quibble. > [@](#): > > You might want to try reading what you wrote prior to this, what I responded to. You claimed that women are getting abortions because pregnancy is inconvenient, which just isn’t true if for no other reason that zealots like you have made getting an abortion very inconvenient for many women. 4% of women are probably the ones who had a good chance of dying or being severely affected healthwise by a pregnancy, but that doesn’t mean that any pregnancy can be viewed as merely inconvenient. I’d be careful who you call a zealot. I’d like to see where I said women abort a pregnancy because the pregnancy is inconvenient. If anything, and I have probably said it, I’d have said that women have abortions because they deem taking care of a child to be inconvenient, which would be true. A simple glance at the reasons why women have abortions will tell you this. The majority of the reasons boil down to convenience, as it’s easier to do those things without a kid than with one. You don’t have to like it, but it is what it is. Anyone who claims otherwise isn’t living in the real world. Luckily, the internet is full of unapologetic pro-choicers claiming they had multiple abortions and they would have more and how it was no big deal. Plus, there’s always New York City where a woman can walk into a clinic, schedule an abortion, get it the same day and walk out like nothing ever happened 😛 > [@](#): > > So, then you agree that few enough abortions as to approach zero are done on a whim, right? Well, unless you live in NYC, I don’t think anyone has said abortions are “done on a whim”. > [@](#): > > As for it involving her body, no matter what the reason is she wants an abortion, it is still her body that you are trying to hijack. So you’re saying a woman can have an abortion because it’s her body even if she’s having an abortion for reasons which are unrelated to her body? That seems to be a bit dishonest. Why should a woman be allowed to have an abortion for a reason unrelated to it being her body? > [@](#): > > Seriously? How about in the early stages it doesn’t have much difference from a cancer cell, and at the point most abortions are done it cannot breathe, doesn’t have much in the way of internal organs, and must act as a parasite in order to get nutrients and to relieve itself of waste. It cannot feel or hear, it has no emotions. You did note that I said that a fetus in not alive _in the same way_ a woman is, right? An ant is also not alive in the same way, and I’d say that a fetus has less “life” than any given ant does. This is a lot of psuedo-philosophical mumbo jumbo. [Life](http://www.una.edu/faculty/pgdavison/BI%20101/Overview%20Fall%202004.htm), fortunately, is neither defined nor qualified that way. If it were, then we’d be defining a shit load of people out of rights. For example, based on your critiria, the blind, those who need respirators to breath, those born without specific organs, etc. But who would agree to that? > [@](#): > > English isn’t your primary language? I said it tends to interfere with working or going to school, not that it cannot be done. And as for pregnant women in the workplace, no body on this message board wants me to get started on the lack of value the average pregnant woman gives to the office… In fact, it’s not. But I read what you wrote out and my comment still stands. Are you saying that women can’t do both? > [@](#): > > What federal law considers the fetus to have the same body as a woman? [This one](http://www.nrlc.org/Unborn_Victims/UVVAEnrolled.html). > [@](#): > > Apparently you figured out that you were on the wrong side of intelligent on this one, since you didn’t finish whatever you were going to say about me evicting someone from my home. Ehhh, I’m not sure how I didn’t finish that thought. Okay. Let me try that again. > [@](#): > > I’ll tell you what. Go outside and find someone. It can be anyone. Drag them into your place of residence and keep them there for a while. After some extended period of time decide that you don’t want them there anymore and kick them out, even if by doing so you endanger their life. See if the “well, I can evict them as I please!” argument gets you anywhere. > [@](#): > > Those would be for those fetuses who were killed during the commission of a crime and the woman wanted to continue the pregnancy. Basically, those are property laws wound up with whatever damage is done to the woman’s body and inserted into whatever other crime was going on to induce the death of the fetus. As I said, the fetus isn’t an individual, so it doesn’t have the rights to the regular homicide laws. Errr lol. No. I think it was to Bryan I made the comment to, but you do realize that a woman could be on her way to the abortion clinic to abort her pregnancy, and if I were to run into her and kill her I could be charged for the death of her unborn child even if it was going to be dead within an hour. And even if I was the abortionist and was going to kill it myself. Some property laws. > [@](#): > > The first part of that sentence seriously disagrees with the second part.. No, it doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2773 "2011-06-02T22:15:05Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I started to type out something long but then I figured, why bother? … Huh. Turns out you have a sense of humor after all. Sorta. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2774 "2011-06-02T23:04:46Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > 'Tis not a false conclusion. You said it yourself; because, for whatever reason, you’d rather be alive now. Anyone who truly wanted to be dead would be or would have already tried. As callous as it sounds, it’s just a cold hard fact. My being alive now has nothing to do with the subject at hand, which is the life any un-aborted baby might be born into. Would you also tell an abuse survivor that none of that mattered, they aren’t being abused _now_? As for the suicide thing, obviously you have never been suicidal. > [@](#): > > I’d be careful who you call a zealot. Why? > [@](#): > > I’d like to see where I said women abort a pregnancy because the pregnancy is inconvenient. If anything, and I have probably said it, I’d have said that women have abortions because they deem taking care of a child to be inconvenient, which would be true. A simple glance at the reasons why women have abortions will tell you this. The majority of the reasons boil down to convenience, as it’s easier to do those things without a kid than with one. You don’t have to like it, but it is what it is. Anyone who claims otherwise isn’t living in the real world. Well, I’m not going to play that game with you. If you did say you thought abortion was inconvenient, I’m not digging thru these mountains of words you’ve been putting out, and if you didn’t say it, why did it take until now to say so? Either way, we’ll go with what is right here, which is also stupid. Taking care of a child, particularly a newborn baby, is not _inconvenient_, it’s a giant hassle that should only be taken on by those who want and love children. Since you go on to say a majority of women have abortions for convenience, because it’s “easier to do those things without a kid than with one”, perhaps you need to look up the word convenience because you aren’t using it correctly here. Or you have no clue what it means when a woman decides to abort because she cannot afford to raise a(nother) child, or because taking care of a(nother) child will mean she cannot continue school/advance at work. Do you think it is for “convenience” that a woman who knows she would make a rotten, probably neglectful parent decides to abort? > [@](#): > > Luckily, the internet is full of unapologetic pro-choicers claiming they had multiple abortions and they would have more and how it was no big deal. Plus, there’s always New York City where a woman can walk into a clinic, schedule an abortion, get it the same day and walk out like nothing ever happened 😛 What does that have to do with anything? > [@](#): > > Well, unless you live in NYC, I don’t think anyone has said abortions are “done on a whim”. You did. No, I’m not going to look it up since I’m not responsible for your ability or lack thereof to follow the discussion. Go back a few of your posts and look for the word whim. > [@](#): > > So you’re saying a woman can have an abortion because it’s her body even if she’s having an abortion for reasons which are unrelated to her body? That seems to be a bit dishonest. Why should a woman be allowed to have an abortion for a reason unrelated to it being her body? Why not? It still boils down to you trying to force her to do something with her body that she doesn’t want to. Why she doesn’t want to is immaterial. > [@](#): > > This is a lot of psuedo-philosophical mumbo jumbo. [Life](http://www.una.edu/faculty/pgdavison/BI%20101/Overview%20Fall%202004.htm), fortunately, is neither defined nor qualified that way. If it were, then we’d be defining a shit load of people out of rights. For example, based on your critiria, the blind, those who need respirators to breath, those born without specific organs, etc. But who would agree to that? Again, I said life _in the same way as the woman_. Nor did I say that the fetus lacked any one of those things you listed. > [@](#): > > In fact, it’s not. But I read what you wrote out and my comment still stands. Are you saying that women can’t do both? So I guess I’m supposed to believe that your lack of English as a first language explains all of the times you pick and choose what you respond to, eh? Shrug. No, I didn’t say that women cannot be pregnant and go to school/work, I said that it is difficult to impossible for many, particularly those who have no support to help them, such as a husband/boyfriend or parents. Also, once the baby is born, it is extremely rare for the woman to be able to continue to work/go to school for the first few months and in some cases that means she is now unemployed/flunking out. > [@](#): > > [This one](http://www.nrlc.org/Unborn_Victims/UVVAEnrolled.html). That doesn’t say what you think it does. > [@](#): > > Ehhh, I’m not sure how I didn’t finish that thought. Okay. Let me try that again. You didn’t. > [@](#): > > Errr lol. No. I think it was to Bryan I made the comment to, but you do realize that a woman could be on her way to the abortion clinic to abort her pregnancy, and if I were to run into her and kill her I could be charged for the death of her unborn child even if it was going to be dead within an hour. And even if I was the abortionist and was going to kill it myself. Some property laws. You _could_ be charged but it would depend on who did the charging. The police would assume, if she died, that the woman wanted that fetus and would charge you automatically, but if the woman lived it would be up to her. > [@](#): > > No, it doesn’t. Yes, it does. It is not respectful to tell me my beliefs are wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2775 "2011-06-02T23:38:00Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > No, I said you’re different than most members of the group because most members of the group are content to argue that women obtain abortions for reasons which are related to their bodies, whereas you do not. If that’s the concept you were trying to express, you did so in an especially unclear fashion, and even this allegedly clarified version isn’t very helpful. > [@](#): > > You don’t get to pass off being born to parents who want didn’t want you to be some grossly terrible thing Good thing I’m not doing that. That would be stupid. Rather, why would I _want_ to force a woman to have a child she doesn’t want? What purpose does that serve? Wouldn’t it be optimal to let _her_ pick the timing and number of her children? I fail to see why the state is presumed to be a better judge than the woman. Perhaps she doesn’t have this child now, finishes her education, gets some financial security, builds a stable marriage, and has a wanted child later under better conditions. Perhaps she just doesn’t want children, ever. Perhaps she’s already had one or more children and doesn’t want another. Basically, why the _fuck_ should I trust _your_ generalized opinion over her specific one? > [@](#): > > Yes, infinitely. You’ve said, on more than one occassion, that you don’t care why a woman aborts that it’s none of “our” business. If this is true, then you place an infinite amount more weight upon the woman than does the unborn, for abortion will _never_ be deemed as impermissible. Okay, for abortion - infinitely. For the generic “bodily autonomy” aspect… not infinitely. The state can, after all, search one’s body (even invasively) under certain conditions. The state could conceivably conscript one into military service, with the attendant risk that one’s bodily autonomy will be violated by enemy bullets. In states that practice capital punishment, the state can jam a needle into one’s arm and administer lethal chemicals. There are demands I recognize that the state can make, given the right circumstances. Trouble is, you so casually flip between the specific and the generic that I need to sprinkle my replies with qualifiers and conditions. > [@](#): > > You provided two situations by which you used to argue that abortion would be the “better” choice because it would allow the woman economic stability (or whatever it was you’re trying to argue). Giving that child up for adoption would also allow her economic stability, **and** that doesn’t require killing the child. Ergo, abortion shouldn’t be allowed since it results in-- dare I say it?-- the lesser utility of the two (one alive and one dead vs. two alive). No, because the overriding situation above all, as far as I’m concerned, is whether or not she chooses to continue the pregnancy. I’m more concerned with preserving her individual liberty than I am with population counts. If population counts dropped to critical levels, I _might_ reconsider, but it’s not likely. > [@](#): > > It’s a simple scientific fact, which will totally be evidenced (at least in the U.S.) by the fact that if I’m in a car and I hit a pregnant woman who was on her way to the abortion clinic and I kill her unborn child, I’ll probably get slapped with a homicide/murder charge even though she was going to do it herself. I don’t see how an issue of law can be a _scientific_ fact, but your poor choice of words aside… so? It’s a quirk of the law, same as if you ran over a person who was walking to a bridge with the intent to jump off. All this does is suggest that the fate of the fetus _is not your choice_, which is what I’ve been saying all along. It’s not (or at least it shouldn’t be) your choice nor the choice of any person who wants their beliefs written into law. > [@](#): > > Good luck explaining how you can rape someone without the use of one’s own body. It’s-- dare I say it?-- _impossible_. I’m curious how you could explain how you can rape someone without using _their_ body. And again, before you extend this back to abortion, I remind you of the “inside the body” qualifier, which I find satisfactory even if you do not. > [@](#): > > At any rate, I see you didn’t bother with the rest of what I wrote out, quite possibly because what I wrote out is unassailable. You can tell yourself that, but really I’m just trying to weed out the repetition. There is literally _nothing_ you have written that moves me to reconsider a pro-choice stance, nor to recognize the validity of a pro-life one. At best, I recognize a fundamental disagreement, which I expect will not change if this thread goes to 60 pages or 600. > [@](#): > > This isn’t an impasse. This is you, because you have no valid argument as to why abortion should be kept legal without reaching some ridiculous conclusion (i.e., rape should be legal under the basis of bodily autonomy), trying to treat abortion as special so you can apply your own special rules to it. If it’s all that ridiculous, I couldn’t possibly imagine why a million American women a year get abortions. It would have to be some kind of massive fluke, wouldn’t it? By your argument, women cannot be _trusted_ to make this kind of decision, therefore it should be taken from them. That is correct, is it not? Women cannot be trusted to make this kind of decision? I figure this is the distilled version of all your posts in this thread, though I invite you to correct me if I am wrong. > [@](#): > > That’s not going to fly, especially since you only give that argument consideration one way. I’ve made this point numerous times, but I’ve yet to see any pro-choicer argue that the unborn should be allowed to use the woman’s body whereas someone who is born should not precisely because the relationship between the unborn and its mother and someone who is born and their mother is different. That’s just more of that patented picking and choosing thing pro-choicers in this thread love to do and continue to do. _Please_ proofread before you post - the above paragraph is nonsense. You’ve “yet to see any pro-choicer argue that the unborn should be allowed to use the woman’s body” because _that’s that exact opposite of the pro-choice idea_. Nobody, fetus or otherwise, gets to use a woman’s without her consent (barring the state exceptions mentioned above, plus a few other possibilities). If a born person (say, a rapist) is trying, the woman could have that person arrested, or even use force to defend herself. If it’s an unborn person, her choices are more limited - to either aborting or waiting. And I don’t see why she should be forced to wait, especially considering the physical hardships that pregnancy entails. > [@](#): > > I’m pretty sure I’ve pointed this out before, but you do realize that abortion attitudes don’t vary by gender, correct? I don’t care. I consider this a civil rights issue, so even there was a 95% majority wanting to criminalize abortion, respect for individual freedom can trump it. In the particular case of the U.S., get a constitutional amendment if you want abortion banned that badly. > [@](#): > > This is precisely why I asked you what your argument would be _if_ I were a female and had given birth to two children already, to which you gave me no answer, as if ignoring the question will make it go away. I don’t know what you’re expecting. My answer is… if you’re pregnant, I respect your choice to either abort or have a third child. It’s the same answer I’d give to any woman regardless of how may children she had. If I knew the woman personally, if I knew some specifics about her particular situation, I might be able to offer more specific advice. I don’t know what you’d think your gender or number of children would matter to me, nor how you can plausibly claim I refused to answer. I’d just give the _same_ answer. > [@](#): > > Your argument seems to hinge on the fact that I’m just your average ignorant guy who downplays pregnancy, and is that I were a female I’d argue differently, even though this is simply untrue. Please. I don’t care what your background or gender is - your _arguments_ are weak. I would dismiss these arguments from anyone. I would _hope_ that a person with some academic or professional training in gynecology/obstetrics, social work, demographics, etc. would have better arguments, giving me more of a challenge, but even that’s not guaranteed. I can imagine, for instance, a brilliant medical doctor with decades of experience saying that they became pro-life the moment they heard a fetal heartbeat for the first time, or some such emotional claim. I’d dismiss that with far less effort than I’m using to dismiss _you_. Even after all this, though, I fully admit the possibility that one day I might be convinced to change from pro-choice to pro-life. That’s not today, though, and unless you’ve been holding back some brilliant argument in reserve, the person that convinces me won’t be you. > [@](#): > > Yes, and guess what? **None** of them are pro-choice advocates. Go figure! Even if it mattered to me… **none**? You’re speaking with absolute certainty about the beliefs of a group of humans? That’s absurd on its face - _any_ group of humans, no matter how disciplined and united, is going to have some individual variation. Besides, I’d assume your statistics are based on people who say “My mother tried to abort me and now I’m against abortion”, while ignoring anyone who might say “You know, my parents shouldn’t have had children…” And just for laughs, I googled that phrase: “my parents shouldn’t have had children” and got some hits. Not many, but enough I figure to dismiss the significance of your big bold **none** , even if I gave the opinions of such people special weight, which I do not, and won’t bother talking about them again. If such a person happens to show up in this thread, claiming to be an abortion survivor, they’ll get no points from me for that, but only on the value of their pro-life arguments. > [@](#): > > This is why being able to compare to other situations is so helpful. > > In determining whether murder should be allowed, would you give more credence to the murderer or the murdered? > In determining whether or not rape should be allowed, would you give more credence to the rapist or the raped? > In determining whether or not theft should be allowed, would you give more credence to the thief or the thieved? More credence to the murdered, raped and thieved. Unless there’s an “inside the body” issue at play, of course. Even then, though, the assumption is that unchecked murder, rape and theft don’t just hurt the immediate victims, but undermine the society as a whole (if the effect was truly limited to _just_ the victims, I’d be okay with letting them or their families exact private revenge). I don’t see abortion undermining society. > [@](#): > > As I’ve pointed out about a gajillion times now, an action cannot be rationalized by the individual engaging in it Yes and, frankly, every time you say it, I trust your judgement less and less. By your argument, the fact that you are engaging in this internet discussion means you can’t be trusted to do so rationally. It further suggests that nobody can ever do anything rationally. It’s not an idea I find, heh, rational or plausible. If you want to argue _your_ rationality can’t be trusted, be my guest. I’ll continue believing in mine, thanks. > [@](#): > > No, you can’t, because abortion mitigates those effects. You’ll achieve _better_ results by banning abortion. I know I’ve said this many times now, and each time you’ve ignored it. Fine, I’ll agree that maybe you’ll get some positives (though some of your outcomes strike me as more neutral than positive), but you’ll also get a number of negatives. And since you can get the positives _without_ inviting these negatives, wouldn’t it be better not to ban abortion? > [@](#): > > Except they’re not, and I’d be interested in seeing you prove as much. How many potential adoptive families are there in the U.S. per year? Call it _X_. How many babies will you save through an abortion ban? Call it _Y_. For the first few years of an abortion ban, _X_ steadily drops as the families get their adoptees. _Y_ however increases by the hundreds of thousands _every year_. Right off the bat, I see a problem with your approach. How do you plan to resolve it? Orphanages for the children who will be abandoned? Perhaps, more gently, significant boosts in government support for single mothers? I eagerly await your ideas. > [@](#): > > That’s not the situation. The thing is you don’t know _which_ you are (the killer or the killed). All you know is that if you allow an action (abortion), you’ll either kill someone or someone will kill you. Okay… if I choose to allow the action, then me and the other person will either fight to the death or one of us will be randomly killed or something… Okay… I would not choose to allow the action. Of course, the illustration has no relevance to abortion as long as a certain critical element is omitted. > [@](#): > > No, your claims recognize that if applied in any arena outside of abortion, they’d come off as stupid. This, whether you like it or not, is the bottom line. This is why you adamantly refuse to take your arguments to their logical conclusion… The logical conclusion is that abortion should only apply when a pregnancy is involved. That was easy. Hardly adamant at all. > [@](#): > > I’m sure you realize the deficencies in your own argument/position, but you refuse to acknowledge them instead choosing to argue that any criticism levied against your arguments doesn’t address your actual argument when, in fact, they do. Your criticisms make no sense - I have no hesitation pointing that out. > [@](#): > > Again, if the majority of pro-choicers in Canada argue as you, you’re in **real** trouble as a movement (much the same way it is in the U.S.). As I understand it, the pro-choice position will remain the norm in Canada for as long as enough Canadians feel (as I do) that this is not an issue that should be recriminalized. It’s been fully legal for over 20 years, there have been no ill-effects. Eventually, I guess, the issue will seem so normal to Canadians that a politician who suggests recriminalizing abortion will get a reaction similar to a politician who suggests maybe it was a mistake to give women the vote, i.e. advocating something viewed as ridiculous on its face. I dunno… we’ll have four years of a conservative majority to deal with. If they don’t get to it in this administration or the next, I guess it’ll be a done deal, as permanent as things get in politics. > [@](#): > > There’s no willful misunderstanding here. The same way you don’t take into account the rights and freedoms of the unborn when it comes to abortion in order to argue whether or not allowing or disallowing abortion would result in fewer or more net freedoms, I’m not taking into account the rights and freedoms of the slaves. Either they both count or neither counts. You don’t get to pick and choose. Sure, I do. Or, more accurately, it’s easy and self-evident that a walking talking slave has rights (in fact I’m kind of curious by what chain of events, no pun intended, you think modern Americans could eventually become slaves in the first place), but rather less so for a fetus. You’re _assuming_ a fetus has rights and freedoms in the first place, and for all the times you’ve falsely accused _me_ of begging the question, this is something of a whopper. Now I’ve said on several occasions that I’d gladly stipulate that the fetus has rights, for the sake of argument, just that I don’t see why these rights should override those of the mother. And I stand by that. So you’re trying to force an “all or nothing” choice on me and I casually reject it. > [@](#): > > But shouldn’t the unborn be given considerations the born isn’t due to pregnancy being such a unique situation and uncomparable to anything else? What considerations did you have in mind? > [@](#): > > Or do you those considerations only apply when the woman wants to kill another human being at her whim, which she wouldn’t be able to do outside of abortion? If this is a roundabout way of asking if I think it’s okay for a woman to kill her fetus but not her baby… yes, I think it’s okay for a woman to kill her fetus but not her baby. I’ve been saying this for _years._ I’ve said it ten or more times in this thread alone. > [@](#): > > Please. I’ve answered _all_ of your arguments, not that it was hard to do (it wasn’t). Of course not - you speak with the certainty of willful blindness. > [@](#): > > Seeing as how only a minority of respondents (in the U.S., at least) view abortion to _not_ be murder, it wouldn’t be that hard. Only the _irrational_ view abortion as anything other than murder, and to do so they have to try to redefine what murder is. So your Supreme Court is irrational? That’s a disturbing thought, or it would be if your claim wasn’t ridiculous and blatantly self-serving on its face. > [@](#): > > There’s nothing spiteful about it, unless you’re going to argue that abortion would be made illegal at the request of men looking to “get back at women”, which would be a ridiculous notion, to put it mildly. Oh, I wouldn’t put it past someone to make that argument: “If I have to support this child, so do _you_, bitch!” And then the father just skips out after the birth, abandoning the woman with a child she didn’t want, either. The result I predict is that the woman simply won’t tell her husband or boyfriend she is pregnant, let alone seeking an abortion, which she would then do illegally at risk to herself. Not a result I’d see as a good one. [quote] =you] > [@me](#): > > …and I can vaguely see some justification for (2), though in practice when fathers doesn’t want to support their children, they just… don’t do it. I understand successful pursuing a so-called “deadbeat dad” in court has no guarantees. And a woman who doesn’t want to won’t, either. That still doesn’t explain why number two _shouldn’t_ happen. I eagerly await your response. You mean, would I support the idea that a father could just unilaterally relinquish his parental responsibilities to an unborn child, if he didn’t want the pregnancy to continue but the woman did? I admit, this is a poser, and I’d have to give it some serious thought. But in any case, it has very little to do with being pro-choice, so it has at best limited relevance. I don’t see it in any way posing an argument for an abortion ban. ..continued… ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2776 "2011-06-03T00:34:13Z")
This thread is like a black hole for electrons. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2777 "2011-06-03T00:45:27Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I started to type out something long but then I figured, why bother? I’ll just respond to the end, since that’ spretty much the only thing where I won’t be repeating myself. That’s handy. It allows you skip over a direct question and all the poll data I listed, including the ones that said “for any reason” specifically. I don’t believe you had addressed those before but don’t worry. I understand why you skipped it. > [@](#): > > Uh-huh. It’s odd (well, maybe I should say **amazing** ) to me that in order to try to discredit the polls I provided, which look at whether abortions should be allowed in specific instances, you make reference to polls which don’t spell out the parameters (either by what they mean by “most”, “sometimes”, “depends”, etc.) or don’t spell out what restrictions they are talking about. I didn’t try to discredit the polls nor do I need to, because I’ve acknowledged and provided cites for how polls work. All I did was offer a better overview of your cites. > [@](#): > > I’m not sure how that makes any sense but it’s you we’re talking about so I’m not going to try to make sense of it. Typically, I don’t cite [Religious Tolerance](http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_poll0.htm) but in this case, I’ll make an exception. Cool! This really supports my position that polls are generally accepted as dubious and should be viewed skeptically. That was my contention from the start that you mocked, and now provide a cite for. I’m okay with that. You didn’t quite have the nads to personally acknowledge it, but I forgive you. > [@](#): > > Funny. Didn’t I provide you with polls looking at whether or not abortion should be legal or not in _specific_ instances? Doesn’t the GSS, which I linked to you and which you instantly discredited as biased, measure people’s attitudes for abortion in certain circumstances yearly? Indeed, I did though you disagreed with my conclusion. I acknowledged long ago that more specific polls are generally better. They’re just not proof, which you specifically claimed. Your own cite agrees with me, not you. > [@](#): > > And because you know they don’t exist, you try to call into question the polls I gave you by giving me polls which either don’t spell out what “most/sometimes” are, but don’t spell out what restrictions are being talked about. Go figure, huh? The simple fact is that you could spend all day of every day trying to find a poll which says, for example, that when given the choice, they would allow a woman to abort for \ (i.e., "because she wants to hold a career), but you’d not find it, whereas I can point to numerous polls which, when asked specifically whether or not a woman should be able to have an abortion in a specific circumstance (i.e., because she can’t afford to have a baby, the majority of Americans say no. Nice try. When the poll specifically says “for any reason” then I’ve done exactly what you claim I didn’t do. Your failure to acknowledge the very plain language in my sites from your own links doesn’t help you. Moreover, my larger point, that poll data is generally considered doubtful rather than proof, and that you ignored conflicting data , have been demonstrated to be true. Once again, by your own cites. > [@](#): > > Again, this is a well known fact and is evidenced by the fact that pro-choicers don’t want Roe v. Wade overturned because abortions would end up far more restricted than they are now. Poll after poll shows that the majority don’t want Roe vs Wade over turned. I guess the majority don’t want those restrictions turned into law,regardless of their personal moral view, and my interpretation of the total data was closer to correct than your cherry picking. > [@](#): > > …Yeah. That’s precisely what I said. I’ll remember that. It will come in handy in my next post. Now that you’ve demonstrated you don’t have a leg to stand on here, we can move on. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2778 "2011-06-03T01:09:49Z")
> [@OMG](#): > > Why do we need adoption **and** abortion, when adoption accomplishes the same thing overall as abortion (especially considering the reasons why women abort) _without_ killing the unborn. Simple math says it won’t. The number of abortions per year will rapidly exceed the number of potential adopters, so unless you plan to start exporting surplus babies, your forced supply will rapidly outstrip your demand. Let’s just spitball some numbers. **X** = number of extra babies born per year after an abortion ban, even a “toothless” one = ~400,000 ? **A** = number of families or individuals seeking to adopt a baby the year abortion is banned = ~1.6 million (taken from [this site](http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/s_seek.cfm), representing a 1995 number of women who had taken concrete steps toward adoption) **A[sub]I[/sub]** = Annual increase in the number of adoption seekers = I dunno… 100,000 per year? So after four years, **A** drops to zero; all the families who had taken concrete steps toward adopting have adopted. Over those four years, 400,000 new families sought to adopt and are satisfied by all the babies born in year 5. Now what? **X** will exceed **A[sub]I[/sub]** (which I expect is already a _very_ liberal estimate) by 300,000 per year. What are you going to do with the surplus? Hope for the best? Hope that the mothers who didn’t want them will take care of them? Punish the mothers if they don’t? Assume 90% of the mothers adapt and better themselves or whatever. Now you’ve got a possibly manageable 30,000 abandoned/abused/neglected children. Yay, won’t that be fun? If you’ve got any kind of hard statistics to replace my ballpark estimates, I invite you to fill them in. > [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > You never heard of [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Gosnell) guy? No, but I’ll read the link now… I remember the case, vaguely, but I hadn’t taken any particular note of the guy’s name. I see he’s being charged with murder. No argument, here. > [@](#): > > Except, for the most part, you are. For example, I’ve asked numerous time for you to show me that making abortion legal reduced the poverty rate and that making abortion illegal would increase the poverty rate, but thus far you’ve yet to provide a link, a study, an article or pretty much anything which would source this claim. Heck, haven’t **you** cited some stats that show a major reason women choose to abort is economics? Yeah, here it is: > [@](#): > > Can’t afford a baby now: 23% Are they lying? Will forcing a baby on a woman who claims to not be able to afford a baby _improve_ her situation, or is likely to worsen it? Yeah, they must be lying. They want abortions, therefore they can’t be trusted to have rational reasons for them. > [@](#): > > I am? I don’t think so. I gave you a couple of links and you never did respond to them outside of simply casting them aside. For example, abortion legalization causing an increase in risky sexual behavior and a lower contraceptive use rate than otherwise would occur. You think those are of “bad quality”? I cheerfully stipulate that you are 100% correct, and I don’t care. Even if all these wonderful things came to pass, there are still negatives that outweigh them that you have not and will not consider. > [@](#): > > Has anyone here been arguing for a complete ban on abortion for any case? Of course not. But, yeah, I’d picture something like that if there were a complete abortion ban in the U.S. and the U.S. suddenly became a 3rd world country. But what are the chances of either happening? I figure banning abortion would be a big step in that direction. A big juicy repressive step. Anyway, some parts of Nicaragua are better off economically than some parts of the U.S. I figure Nicaragua’s not a bad example, since it’s a country where abortion was once legal and now isn’t. It’s actually not that easy to find countries who do this. Most countries don’t go _backward_ on civil rights. > [@](#): > > No. You’re supposed to assume good things about New York City. Consider NYC hands out condoms like candy and there are “reproductive health centers” literally every three blocks, if the pro-choice rhetoric held true, you’d expect the unplanned pregnancy rate, the abortion rate and the STD rate to be ridiculously low. Instead, they’re generally among the highest, if not the highest, in the nation. Well, if I cared about pro-choice rhetoric, I guess I’d care about this. > [@](#): > > And yet they occurred at a much lower _rate_, which is the important point you’re ignoring, then vs. now. I don’t care what the rate is, one per year or five million per year. Is it important? > [@](#): > > No, it’s because pro-lifers tend to focus on those things which society cares more about while pro-choicers tend to focus on things society does not. Even assuming this is true, aren’t the issues that society doesn’t care about the ones that _need_ attention? After all, if society cares about an issue, it’ll get attention. It’s when society is indifferent that things like lynchings can occur unpunished. > [@](#): > > You’d guess wrong. Well, I guess time will tell. I can picture the U.S. taking a few more spasmodic lurches to the right, amid a very gradual slide to the left toward things like universal health care and such. Or maybe the whole country will fracture. > [@](#): > > So in what circumstance does abortion become impermissible? I can vaguely picture some kind of _Children of Men_-type scenario where an epidemic of some kind causes fertility rates to drop to near-zero. I’d expect quite a few civil rights to get suspended under such conditions. > [@](#): > > If it’s not absolute, then how can it be used as a means by which to argue abortion should be legal, since by your own admission, it can be violated? It can be used very well, it turns out. Seriously, what kind of question is that? If something is not absolute, it can’t be used at all? If it’s only true 99.99% of the time, it’s effectively untrue? > [@](#): > > It’s not perposterous. You can only act in a certain manner because the law allows you to. Only in the case of abortion are people allowed to rationalize the permissibility of that act for themselves where that act results in harm being brought to another. I stand by my “preposterous” and your “only” omits cases of self-defense and even contact sports. > [@](#): > > When have I ever demanded a cite asking whether or not some women would die from an illegal abortion? Didn’t I, like, totally say that given the large sample size that there’d invariably be one woman who would kill herself trying to abort? And the fact that you’re okay with that undermines your credibility, as far as I’m concerned. You would turn citizens just trying to live their lives into desperate criminals, and for what? To put them in their place? > [@](#): > > “Because it is.” Can’t prove it, huh? You can’t prove that your freedom, your life and your not-being-raped-hood is important to you. Well, fortunately, there are people who will protect these on your behalf. > [@](#): > > I’m sure you’d rather choose neither, but we’re assuming you have to choose one. You’re assuming that. I’ll continue to choose neither. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2779 "2011-06-03T01:21:13Z")
I’ll do this one first. > [@cosmosdan](#): > > That’s handy. It allows you skip over a direct question and all the poll data I listed, including the ones that said “for any reason” specifically. I don’t believe you had addressed those before but don’t worry. I understand why you skipped it. No, it means I grow tired of responding to the same thing and having you ignore it. For example, you made reference in your previous post to the following poll: > [@](#): > > Time Poll conducted by Abt SRBI. June 18-25, 2008. N=805 likely voters nationwide. MoE ± 3. > > “Which of these positions best represents your views about abortion? A woman should be able to get an abortion if she wants one, no matter what the reason, up until the time the fetus is viable, that is, can live on its own. Abortion should only be legal in certain circumstances, such as when a woman’s health is endangered or when the pregnancy results from rape or incest. Abortion should be illegal in all circumstances, even if the mother’s life is in danger.” > > Legal Until Fetus Viable/Sometimes Legal/Never Legal/No Answer/Unsure > > 6/18-25/08: 43/41/10/6 In order to argue that Americans would leave abortions legal until viability. Now, normally, I’d point out to you that because no group has a majority, that abortions would only be legal where the aggregate of the first two groups is larger than the latter group, and illegal when the aggregate of the latter two groups is larger then the first, but **EVERYTIME I POINT THIS OUT, YOU IGNORE IT**. So I figure, “Why bother?”. You just stick your finger in your ear and go “La, la, la, la, la! I can’t hear you!”. > [@](#): > > I didn’t try to discredit the polls nor do I need to, because I’ve acknowledged and provided cites for how polls work. All I did was offer a better overview of your cites. It’s not only quite clear you don’t understand polls, but you **CAN’T READ THEM** , either. > [@](#): > > Cool! This really supports my position that polls are generally accepted as dubious and should be viewed skeptically. That was my contention from the start that you mocked, and now provide a cite for. I’m okay with that. You didn’t quite have the nads to personally acknowledge it, but I forgive you. I’m tempted to find where I said something along the lines of me not being interested in non-specific polls but rather those polls which specifically ask Americans whether or not abortions should be legal or illegal in a specific circumstance but just like you ignored it the first, second, third and maybe even fourth and fifth times, I really don’t think it’d be any different now (plus, I can’t remember the posts I said as much in and am lazy right now :p). No, what it means is that non-specific polls aren’t good to use. Which is what I said-- oh-- ages ago. But feel free to ignore that. > [@](#): > > I acknowledged long ago that more specific polls are generally better. They’re just not proof, which you specifically claimed. Your own cite agrees with me, not you. Yet, for some odd reason, you’ve shyed away from specific polls in favor of generalized ones which don’t define their parameters? Yeah, that makes sense. > [@](#): > > Nice try. When the poll specifically says “for any reason” then I’ve done exactly what you claim I didn’t do. There is not a single poll where “legal for any reason” is the majority. Not one. [quote[Your failure to acknowledge the very plain language in my sites from your own links doesn’t help you. Moreover, my larger point, that poll data is generally considered doubtful rather than proof, and that you ignored conflicting data , have been demonstrated to be true. Once again, by your own cites.[/quote] All right. See the problem here is that because you can’t prove what I say is untrue, you go out and find a poll which is overly generalized such as “Do you support making abortions harder to obtain?” and take this as proof that the majority of Americans don’t support restrictions on abortion. I mean, really? That’s not going to work, because you need to define what “Making abortions harder to obtain” means. Such a statement means different things to different people and doesn’t square with certain facts. For example, Americans tend to view parental consent laws favorably (70% support), yet these would make “Abortions harder to obtain”. They also tend to support waiting periods and spousal notification laws, which would also make abortions “harder to obtain”. So what do you say about that? Either those polls which ask Americans which restrictions they’d specifically support are wrong, or those polls which doesn’t delve into specific restrictions but rather generalized statements don’t tell the full story. Hmmm… I wonder which it could be. I really do. > [@](#): > > Poll after poll shows that the majority don’t want Roe vs Wade over turned. I, again, direct you to one of my previous responses. > [@](#): > > I guess the majority don’t want those restrictions turned into law,regardless of their personal moral view, and my interpretation of the total data was closer to correct than your cherry picking. Take notice that you keep repeating this, no matter how many times I quote something which says the direct opposite. I’ve done so three or four times now, yet you _still_ persist in saying the same thing. Either you’re incapable of reading (which I can believe) or you’re choosing to be willlfully ignorant (which I can also believe). > [@](#): > > I’ll remember that. It will come in handy in my next post. Please do. > [@](#): > > Now that you’ve demonstrated you don’t have a leg to stand on here, we can move on. Except you haven’t, and are content to use general responses as proof that the public won’t support specific bans or restrictions on abortion which, for the record is false. I mean, even without polls we know it’s false, because if it were true, pro-choicers wouldn’t care if abortion were made illegal because nothing would change, as if what is now is the status quo, then all would remain the same and all would be well. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/2780 "2011-06-03T02:27:01Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > Now, normally, I’d point out to you that because no group has a majority, that abortions would only be legal where the aggregate of the first two groups is larger than the latter group, and illegal when the aggregate of the latter two groups is larger then the first… Fortunately, this is bullshit. If simple majority vote determined the law, the U.S. would still have segregation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935.md?page=138) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935.md?page=140)