For pro choice folks, Is abortion "bad"?

Great Debates
1

Although this is sort of “poll-ish”, the nature of the topic suggests GD to me. If this belongs in IMHO, that’s fine with me.

For the purposes of this topic, look beyond what’s happening in South Dakota, and what happened with the nominations of Alito and Roberts to the SCOTUS. Look beyond whether Roe is good law, or whether there should be any restrictions on abortion services.

Inspired by this dialog between two self identified pro choice folks, is the act of abortion “bad”?

Saletan, in positing that abortions are “bad”, suggests that pro choicers should “wage war on the abortion rate through birth control and sex education”

Katha Pollitt responds that pursuing a “goal” of zero abortions would “do the antichoicers’ work for them.” and have an aura of “anti abortion moralism”.

Two questions then…

  1. Do you find yourself agreeing more with Saletan or Keenan and Pollitt (or do you have an alternative take)

  2. Saletan mentions the 95-10 initiative of Democrats for Life. Would you support such an initiative?

2

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to think abortion is bad thing but not want to limit others choices. That’s part of that whole ‘freedom’ thing. I might well disagree with abortion but I don’t think I’m smart enough to make a choice for someone else. And as for the ‘God’ issue I don’t think I’m in a position to abrogate God’s job of punishing sinners.

Feh. Too many people seem to belive opposite me.

3

I believe abortion can be both bad and good - but short of a time machine, we can’t tell what the results will be for the child and mother, or non-mother.

So to answer your question, no, I don’t consider abortion to be bad solely by it being abortion, just in the same way that killing someone, stealing, lying, etc. are always bad or good. It can be either.

4

I like the Clinton view “safe, legal, and rare.”

There will always be a need for abortion, unfortunately, with failures in birth control, incidents of abuse, rape, incest, people not knowing they are pregnant, etc. But it is an exceptionally poor form of birth control, simply because it is an in-office/inpatient procedure that has a reasonably high risk of complication (physical and emotional). This is despite any argument on the moral worth of the fetus, it is simply a medical way to side-step the question.

Anyone arguing that we should do nothing to lower the rate of such a medical technique, which is potentially dangerous (not to mention expensive) is full of crap. This includes pro-choice people like Pollitt as well as pro-lifers who oppose birth control and sex education, who want to reduce funding to programs providing condoms and so forth, and believe that abstinence education is the only way (although gladly the federal government has been backing off those claims).

5

I don’t know whether or not abortion is “bad”, but I sure as hell know that nobody wants to have one.

Morally, I think the “abortion is bad”, or at least “abortion isn’t good”, position is quite defensible. After all, an embryo or fetus is a genetically unique individual that at some point in its development attains the rights of a person. Even if you believe, as I do, that that point is somewhere around viability rather than conception, and thus that a woman is entitled to choose an early-term abortion, you can still be troubled by the fact of killing.

I also think that killing animals for food is “bad”, in somewhat the same way. We certainly have a legal right to do it, and a lot of us (including me) are willing to eat the corpses, but you can still be troubled by the fact of killing.

(Interestingly, the extent to which abortion and similar procedures are perceived as “bad” seems to be roughly proportional to the development of the embryo/fetus and the invasiveness of the procedure. Most pro-choice people probably feel less ambivalent about “morning-after” pills and RU486 than about surgical abortions, and less ambivalent about early-term surgical abortions than late-term ones.)

6

To be fair, I don’t think that Pollitt is arguing against pregnancy prevention efforts (or other actions that might reduce abortions) …but arguing against a mindset that suggests that abortion is intrinsically “bad” and thus that there should be a “goal” of zero abortion, just like (for example) there should be a “goal” of zero domestic abuse incidents (feel free to substitute your own “bad” thing that should have a “goal” of zero occurences).

7

I personally don’t think abortion is morally bad. I do not think fetuses are self-aware, and have any sense of that they are being “killed” or any desire to continue to live. In this sense, they are like animals- and we kill a lot of animals every day for some pretty dumb reasons. I don’t give much weight to the idea of potential- I like to operate in the realm of actual reality. I do think abortion is unfortunate in that it is expensive and will probably cause some negative feelings to the woman, and so I believe that birth control is definitely a better solution. But I don’t see getting an abortion as a bad or immoral choice.

8

I’m not sure that the “bad” part of the question refers to the unpleasantness of the procedure in this particular question.

My 4 year old will have to have her tonsils taken out later this month. I’m dreading the event, hell I’d rather have it done to me than her. OTOH, the tonsillectomy isn’t really “bad” in the sense that Saletan is talking about.

I’m not trying to make up anyone’s mind in response to the question in the OP, just to clarify what Saletan seems to be angling at here.

Just like there is a spectrum of attitudes among folks who self identify as “pro life”, there is a spectrum of attitudes among folks who self identify as “pro chocie”. I think that questions like the one Saletan is raising help to articulate some of the different attitudes.

IMHO of course :wink:

9

I will answer Question 0: Is abortion “bad”?

My personal viewpoint, based on my limited studies of the biological sciences, is that a newly fertilized embryo is not conscious/self-aware and is therefore not yet human life and may be aborted. I don’t know enough about the biological specifics to give you a timeframe, so I’ll say “as early as possible”.

There are so many eggs and sperm, also, in people who are physically able to reproduce, that I don’t feel as though a fetus aborted at that point in time is a life lost.

Also, every time you flick your index finger forcibly with your thumb you “abort” the cellular equivalent of up to 300 embryos. The fact that those cells got two sets of chromosomes each and became parts of fingers or fingernails, rather than getting one set and becoming a sperma or an egg, is irrelevant in my mind.

This may come as a surprise, but my biggest reason for being pro-choice–which weighs far heavier in my mind than those given above–comes from my personal moral code, which states that bringing a child into a terrible situation is the Wrong Thing. I define a “terrible situation” as one in which the child does not have the opportunities for success that he/she deserves. Example: I am a broke-ass college student who is an American citizen. I’m currently participating, therefore, in a gradual process that will eventually make me a person with the means to support a family and give my children (should I choose, or otherwise happen, to have them) their deserved opportunities to succeed. I believe it’s far more just for a child of mine to be born then, where he/she can grow up to be whatever they want to be, than now where the child will have a miserable existence and, for that matter, so will I and the mother. Having a child right now would likely destroy (or at least severely hamper) my ability to provide opportunities in the future for later children, which in my mind is a crime against the child now, the later children, myself and the mother. In my mind, abortion is therefore the most just and moral thing to do for a child I might father in my present situation. But adoption is also a viable option, because the child can go to a married couple in a good situation who have (a) love for a child and (b) the means to support a child but do not have © the ability to have their own children. My child would be a wonderful gift to a couple like that, and the opportunity to grow up in that family would be a wonderful gift to my child, and also the opportunity to focus on our personal goals would be a wonderful gift to myself and the mother.

And by the way–whether or not abortion were legal, mothers who desperately want/need to abort will find a way to do it. And if it were illegal, they’d have to go on the black market to do it. I’ve heard horror stories about such procedures in Mexico, where abortion is (was?) illegal; the mother dies, and the doctor has to hide the mother’s body and flee. I don’t see how it would be different here.

YMMV.

10

No, I don’t think abortion, at least in the first trimester, is morally wrong. It’s a bunch of cells, much like anyother bunch of cells, and not yet a human being.

But aborting pregnancies is often tramatic for the women, many of whom no doubt do find their abortions morally troubling. Even for those who don’t, from what I here its a rather painfull process, and there’s a fairly hefty social stigma that goes along with having had an abortion. So in that sense, I do think abortion is “bad”, and that trying to make abortions rare, by giving women the tools and resources to avoid unplanned pregnancies, is a good thing.

11

I also believe in the ‘safe, legal and rare’ attitude. Birth control and contraception should be taught, endorsed by society and free for the asking. And a few million in research grants should be invested to find some kind of contraception that males will find simple and be willing to use. Not to suggest that women shouldn’t be acting responsibly, but if both sexes were being careful the odds of unplanned pregnacy would be far less.

12

Perhaps this is a nitpick but I think animals are demonstrably self aware not to mention averse to getting killed. I think the comparison of a fetus to an animal is not correct…apples and oranges.

13

What you’re describing sounds like badness foisted down upon abortion by its social context, not badness inherent in abortion itself. Would you theoretically favor trying to change the societal context–either in addition to, or in substitution of–working to lower the abortion rate, as it were?

14

I consider myself pro-choice and I think abortions are usually bad. The women I’ve known who’ve had abortions seem to feel the same way. I don’t think there are any women who are looking forward to their first abortion. But having an abortion is less bad than the alternative, normally.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” my mom used to say. I wouldn’t vote pro-choice if I thought it meant an end to pregnancy prevention in the first place.

Are there actually significant numbers of pro-choicers who are against birth control & sex education? Sheesh. That’s like telling gay men they shouldn’t use condoms because we have pretty good AIDS drugs now.

15

I have no problem with a blob of a few undifferentiated stem cells being terminated, but I’m not comfortable with a fetus being terminated the day before it’s going to be born.

I’m not knowledgable enough to have an opinion precisely where that line should get drawn, though.

16

Well, some of it is due to sociatal context, the fact that the surgery (or the taking of the RU pill) is painful (and I assume not great for ones health) is still a bad thing.

But in any case, I don’t know if I’d be comfortable in a campaign to make people that don’t feel abortion is morally OK change their minds. I disagree with them, but it’s a moral choice, and I don’t want to press them to change thier stance. Sort of the same reason I don’t try and convince vegetarians to eat meat. Personally I think it’s just a dumb cow and its OK to eat it, but I respect that some folks might empheisze with livestock more then I do, and I don’t want to make them feel uncomfortable about it.

Which I guess is why they call it “pro-choice”, I think people should be free to make the choice their conscience dictates, free not only from any legal restraints, but also from a lot of moralizing and speechifying from a strangers.

17

[QUOTE=edwino]
I like the Clinton view “safe, legal, and rare.”

[QUOTE]
Don’t understand this perspective, and I’m not trying to be contrary. If abortion is a moral choice, why do you (or anyone) care if it’s rare?

18

I apologize for being so unspecific. I didn’t mean we should set up a campaign that rolls around shouting at people from livespeakers, but rather, we should do what we can to keep the choice legal, be tolerant of other viewpoints, and encourage other people (on an individual level) to be tolerant of the choices of others. I’m talking less “organized movement” and more just being accepting and letting the tolerance spread. I don’t know about you, but I feel that tolerance and goodwill are viruses which spread healthily in the proper conditions; just like hatred and intolerance, which also spread quickly and effectively in the proper conditions. Would you disagree?

19

No. I don’t "think that is what Keenan et al are saying. I think they are saying, look while abortion is not enjoyable for anyone involved…it has no intrinsic “badness”. Having a goal of “zero” abortions is accepting the premise of the pro life folks…and we shouldn’t be aiding their cause.

Saletan seems to be saying that abortion is intrinsically “bad” (although should still be legal within some sort of framework). That “badness” is one reason why pro choice folks should “declare war” on the abortion rate in this country (while still having abortions legal in said framework)

There are more points that both sides make in the linked piece…but that seem to be their main positions.

20

Well I think first trimester abortions are a good thing in an overpopulated world.

Trust me though, this is a minority opinion. (As a separate matter, I practice contraception rigorously: I have refused sex with my (now-X) girlfriend when none was available; I’ve never been involved in an unplanned pregnancy.)

Put in another way, I don’t think first trimester fetuses are human beings: the distinguishing characteristics of humanity are linked with their mental characteristics. (Pre-emption: even the most severely retarded human has more intelligence than a 2nd trimester fetus. OTOH, I would say that somebody in an irreversible coma has tragically lost their human life. In the other extreme, someone of sound mind but no body is worth fighting for.)