# Abortion: The One True Hill to die on **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 18, 2018, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401 "2018-05-18T15:04:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/21 "2018-05-18T16:03:11Z")
You’ll all have to excuse me if I refuse to have my personal reproductive freedom subjugated by cultural norms based on a society from half way around the world that is well over 2,000 years old. Part of “religious freedom” is “freedom from religion”, specifically freedom the a moral code based on religious beliefs that YOU just happen to have. Fuck YOU for actually believing that the sun rises on sets on what YOU think I should do with MY body. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/22 "2018-05-18T16:24:29Z")
One justification that was given when anti-abortion laws were enacted was that abortions were a risky medical procedure and they shouldn’t be allowed because they endangered the woman. The Roe decision addressed this issue by pointing out that medical science had advanced and getting an abortion was no longer a serious risk in 1973. Some pro-life people have tried to keep this argument alive by arguing there are still significant risks to having an abortion. It’s a line of argument they like because it’s supposedly based on objective science rather than a religious issue. But the evidence doesn’t back up this argument. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/23 "2018-05-18T16:30:34Z")
And that was one of the major concerns of ancient societies. Certain practices were condemned ONLY because they harmed the mother. There was a reference to one in my research that was condemned because the method and the materials used regularly caused vaginal ulcers. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/24 "2018-05-18T16:34:11Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > We don’t. Name a single recent instance where the United States \*specifically targeted brown-skinned children with bombs for the sake of bombing them, \*and did so on the basis of it being viewed as a good thing to do. Collateral damage isn’t the same; the primary target isn’t the kids. Nonsense. Do you really believe that’s how racism works? People don’t post announcements saying they’re doing something for racist reasons. If you want to take a honest look, you look at how people act not what they say. If you see that people have a pattern of treating people with one color skin differently than they treat people with a different color skin, then they’re racists. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/25 "2018-05-18T16:36:05Z")
Hey now, let’s keep this to the topic of abortion. We have plenty of threads about racism. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/26 "2018-05-18T17:03:17Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > We don’t. Name a single recent instance where the United States \*specifically targeted brown-skinned children with bombs for the sake of bombing them, \*and did so on the basis of it being viewed as a good thing to do. Collateral damage isn’t the same; the primary target isn’t the kids. Look, we go to war in brown- and yellow-skinned parts of the world, and do so with little regard to the number of lives that will be lost by those living there. If ‘life’ is all so important to the pro-birthers, then you’d think they’d be more outraged by the cavalier way we went into Iraq and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who lost their lives as a result, and that they’d be trying to raise the awareness of the American people about the butchery we’re aiding and abetting in Yemen right now. And I know they must continue to be furious about the 2 million civilians who lost their lives during our war in Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/27 "2018-05-18T17:08:40Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Yes, but to pro-lifers, that’s the difference between \*\*active \*\*and **passive**. If you are actively killing someone (which is what abortion is, from the pro-life standpoint,) that is quite different than merely not intervening on behalf of someone. Well, _why?_ Either way, it’s the death of a person who God loves - that’s what they believe, right? Because I sure as fuck do. Active, passive, screw it - if they can do something to keep people who God loves from unnecessarily dying, then why are they so often not just failing to act, but _opposing_ action on the part of others? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/28 "2018-05-18T18:37:08Z")
In my opinion it’s a “perfect storm” issue: • There are oodles of socially conservative people who think like Randall Terry does: that it’s a lamentable tragedy that sexual mores have changed since the days when women kept their legs crossed out of fear of pregnancy. These are people who would like to snatch away contraception, too; their reason for wanting abortion to be illegal is that they want it to be shameful for women to have sex outside of marriage. Any concern they have for a fetus is strictly incidental and only relevant for its rhetorical value. • But meanwhile, the rhetoric (cynical though it may have originally been) (your mileage may vary on that, btw) about how awful it is to kill innocent babies etc, has brought a lot of supporters who now oppose abortion for noncynical reasons—they are sincere about thinking that abortion is directly a tragedy, they’re moved by those photos of little fetus hands and feet, or they’re worried that some girls get pressured into having abortions when it isn’t what they would naturally want (cuz all pregnant women naturally have an urge to have the baby, right?), or the pro-choice rhetoric that makes it sound as innocuous as tossing aside a used tampon seems horrible and callous to them, etc. Add the two components together and you’ve got a lot of support on the issue. There’s also some blurring between the two ways of looking at the issue, with some people having some unexamined attitudes that are close to the first bullet point but who are more conscious of their beliefs that fit the second: they think it’s downright sinful to be killing those innocent babies, but meanwhile yeah it’s also a shame that the world is so immoral about sex and it was better when sex was recognized as something that nice girls didn’t engage in, and when most girls aspired to being nice girls, etc etc etc ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/29 "2018-05-18T19:39:34Z")
> [@Strassia](#): > > First, remember this is a recent change for Protestant groups. As recently as the [70s]([http://www.p](http://www.p) [atheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-biblical-view-thats-younger-than-the-happy-meal/](http://atheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-biblical-view-thats-younger-than-the-happy-meal/)), this was not even remotely an issue for the majority of non-Catholic denominations. > > [The truth is the Religious Right movement was all about race and fighting against desegregation](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5502785): > Abortion opposition was selected as a more acceptable moral cause than fighting desegregation: Came here to post this. Anti-abortion is a cobbled together, made up cause. Political operatives manufactured it into a wedge issue. As the OP noted there is little religious prohibition on this. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/30 "2018-05-18T19:54:29Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > [Careful what you say!](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/state-mandated-mourning-for-aborted-fetuses/482688/) (Indiana tried to require funerals for abortions). Ah, yes, life under governor Pence! So much attention paid to dead fetuses, so little to living, breathing humans. Remember, that guy is just a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. That law got overturned, but the religious nuts are always trying to push another one through hoping they’ll get lucky one day. ---
**Author:** ![HeweyLogan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heweylogan/32/547_2.png) [@HeweyLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeweyLogan)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/31 "2018-05-18T20:28:34Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > And yet we have children going hungry in this country and deny them heallth Better kill them before they face that horrible, awful fate. Been a member of PETA for long? Some sick shit attitude, there. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/32 "2018-05-18T20:37:52Z")
> [@](#): > > So how did this issue become the one overriding issue for Conservatives that they’re willing to vote for the very embodiment of the seven deadly sins, they’re willing to vote against their own best interests at all levels, if the politician denounces abortion? It is an overriding issue with some conservatives, usually those with a fundamentalist religious bent. Usually politicians who die on this hill are those who have (or perceive they have) a majority or a very vocal minority of voters in their districts who will vote on this single issue (or stay home). It’s why you don’t normally see a hard line on this in presidential elections, as the reality is the majority of Americans don’t feel as the fundamentalists do on this issue. A notable exception is Pence, who does take a hard line on this. Of course, as he was only the VP choice it wasn’t that much of an issue. I seriously doubt Trump cares about this issue one way or the other, and I’ve read he often ridicules Pence about it in closed meetings. If the Republicans try and make this a core issue in this years election (not to mention the next presidential election) then I wish them joy of the results. Dems are probably rubbing their hands together hoping the Pubs take a hard line on this. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/33 "2018-05-18T20:38:20Z")
nm. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/34 "2018-05-18T21:54:02Z")
> [@HeweyLogan](#): > > Better kill them before they face that horrible, awful fate. > > Been a member of PETA for long? > > Some sick shit attitude, there. You’d rather wait until they can feel the pain and not understand why. Some sick shit attitude, there. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/35 "2018-05-18T22:24:41Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Yes, but to pro-lifers, that’s the difference between \*\*active \*\*and **passive**. If you are actively killing someone (which is what abortion is, from the pro-life standpoint,) that is quite different than merely not intervening on behalf of someone. Sure, more should be done to help the kids. But from the pro-life standpoint, what you are describing is the difference between someone merely not helping a hungry homeless man on a street corner, and someone actively \*killing \*a homeless man on a street corner. Do you think pro-lifers wouldn’t be outraged if a pregnant woman was to starve herself so as to passively abort her fetus? Cuz I think they would be outraged by that. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/36 "2018-05-18T22:29:58Z")
Its about controlling women’s sexuality. That’s why they don’t give a shit about the baby once it’s born, duh. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/37 "2018-05-18T22:31:05Z")
> [@XT](#): > > It is an overriding issue with some conservatives, usually those with a fundamentalist religious bent. Usually politicians who die on this hill are those who have (or perceive they have) a majority or a very vocal minority of voters in their districts who will vote on this single issue (or stay home). This. I would like to see a breakdown of the most pro-life representatives (not senators) and see which districts they come from; might hail heavily from districts such as rural Oklahoma or Alabama. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/38 "2018-05-18T23:10:29Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > We don’t. Name a single recent instance where the United States \*specifically targeted brown-skinned children with bombs for the sake of bombing them, \*and did so on the basis of it being viewed as a good thing to do. Collateral damage isn’t the same; the primary target isn’t the kids. Google is being super-unhelpful, but I seem to recall there was that Israeli aircraft that strafed a bunch of kids kicking around a football on a beach. That aircraft was probably US-built and US-funded. I think it counts. More generally, the drone strikes in Yemen and Afghanistan target entire neighborhoods. That consciously includes children. Less recently, Kissinger’s cluster bombing of Cambodia, but I will grant that that was illegal under US law. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/39 "2018-05-18T23:14:45Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Its about controlling women’s sexuality. That’s why they don’t give a shit about the baby once it’s born, duh. That’s also why some “pro-lifers” are against comprehensive sex ed, or access to contraception. Otherwise, you would think that people who are against abortion would see the value of both in _preventing_ the need for most abortions in the first place… ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401/40 "2018-05-18T23:24:47Z")
I’m sorry, that first example used a machine gun, not a bomb. You said bombs. It’s just what came to mind. Still, it’s in the vein of air terror tactics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-the-one-true-hill-to-die-on/814401.md?page=3)