# How important are abortion rights? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 9, 2010, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017 "2010-11-09T10:52:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/21 "2010-11-09T14:26:02Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > This is a pretty silly comparison. Question: is it better to have $10 million or not? I’ll say it’s better to have it. Wait, if you get the $10 million, you have to agree to spend the rest of your life in chains in a dungeon, where you will get daily beatings and starved just short of death. You’ll never see sunlight, friends, or family again. Oh, in that case, you can keep the $10 million. > > See? Having $10 million is not really better than not having it. QED. > > So, what country are you in? Do you have indoor plumbing? I think you misunderstood my point. Not all rights are equal. The right to life for instance, is traditionally considered the most important - without it, there are no other rights. There is also the right to education, right to trial in due course of law etc. All of these are, IMO, more important than any putative right to an abortion. To use your example, $10 million is important, but not as important as freedom and an adequate food supply. People talk about a right to abortion, and fight continually about it, but as far as I can see the ‘right’ in question comes far below most other rights, even ones like freedom of speech. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/22 "2010-11-09T14:31:17Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > People talk about a right to abortion, and fight continually about it, but as far as I can see the ‘right’ in question comes far below most other rights, even ones like freedom of speech. Again, that’s because _you_ aren’t the one being forced to serve as an incubator. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/23 "2010-11-09T14:31:36Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > But a fetus simply isn’t a person… Cite? That is the crux of the matter right there. I don’t consider a fetus\* to be a person, but “person” is a legal term, not a scientific one. There is no objective way to to determine whether or not a fetus is a person or not. Science doesn’t give us the answer, and so we must make a moral judgement. \*Of course, that’s an oversimplification. Becoming a “person” is a process, not an event. I would consider a 9 month old fetus to be effectively a person, but one that is 2 months, no. Somewhere in between we have to draw an arbitrary line. And anyone who claims that line is not arbitrary doesn’t know what he’s talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/24 "2010-11-09T14:47:43Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > You aren’t a woman being forced to serve as breeding animal. That probably colors your perceptions just a bit. > > As I’ve said in the past, **I regard forbidding a woman abortion the moral equivalent of chaining her to a bed and raping her for nine months.** Utterly evil, completely indefensible. Oh **Des Trihs** , you silly goose you.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/25 "2010-11-09T14:47:53Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Cite? It doesn’t have anything to be a person _with_. Defining it to be a person requires that you either be wildly inconsistent, or start declaring animals and vegetables “persons”. Defining a fetus as a person is inconsistent with the usage of the term in other contexts and of how the law normally defines “person”. Why is a brain dead body a legally dead thing we can harvest for organs, but a brainless lumps of cells a “person”? Answer: Because defining a fetus as a “person” has no other purpose than attempting to justify forbidding abortion, therefore it doesn’t have to make logical sense. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/26 "2010-11-09T14:51:00Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > Oh **Des Trihs** , you silly goose you.🙂 What’s “silly” about it? Just because you have no problem asserting your ownership of the bodies of women doesn’t mean I have to approve of it. Your indifference towards their suffering doesn’t make my anger over their mistreatment “silly”. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/27 "2010-11-09T14:59:33Z")
Even if the fetus is a person, it does not have the right to use your body without your permission. That is the crux of Roe v. Wade. The anti-abortion group regards pregnancy as a “temporary, minor inconvenience.” Medical decisions should be made by patients and doctors, not the government. ---
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/28 "2010-11-09T15:01:47Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Even if the fetus is a person, it does not have the right to use your body without your permission. Ever heard of estoppel? ---
**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:** [November 9, 2010, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/29 "2010-11-09T15:15:52Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > Ever heard of estoppel? Fell free to expand on this if you believe it is a valid argument. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/30 "2010-11-09T15:24:07Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > I think you misunderstood my point. > > Not all rights are equal. > > The right to life for instance, is traditionally considered the most important - without it, there are no other rights. > There is also the right to education, right to trial in due course of law etc. > All of these are, IMO, more important than any putative right to an abortion. > > To use your example, $10 million is important, but not as important as freedom and an adequate food supply. > > People talk about a right to abortion, and fight continually about it, but as far as I can see the ‘right’ in question comes far below most other rights, even ones like freedom of speech. I understood your post, but it’s still a silly comparison. It makes more sense, in my opinion, to hold all else equal. In any case, comparing building up an infrastructure like indoor plumbing to something that is free, like abortion rights, makes the example even sillier. There are two ways I could envision a better example: 1. Holding all else equal, should there be abortion rights? 2. Are abortion rights more important than other rights, such as freedom of expression, freedom of association, freely elected government, and so on? My answer to (1) is “Yes.” My answer to (2) is “Not sure – but once you have those things, you should also have abortion rights.” For (2), I’d rather live in a free society without abortion rights, than an oppressive dictatorship without the other freedoms but with abortion rights. I’d rather live in pre-Roe US than pre-Roe USSR. However, that’s not a choice I have to make. In the US (and in Ireland) we have those freedoms (and indoor plumbing!) and in my opinion, there should also be abortion rights. Having abortion rights makes a free society more free. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/31 "2010-11-09T15:25:15Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Even if the fetus is a person, it does not have the right to use your body without your permission. It’s not like the thing magically appears there. There are affirmative steps that need to be taken beforehand. ---
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/32 "2010-11-09T15:28:12Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Fell free to expand on this if you believe it is a valid argument. Slightly tongue in cheek. 😛 Estoppel is a legal term which means (in an inaccurate nutshell) that you cannot exercise your legal rights to the detriment of another if they have acted on your assurance that you will not. For example, a son goes to his father, and asks if he can build a house on the father’s land for himself and his new wife. The father says yes, of course he can. The son builds the house, and the father then takes an action to force the son of the land. Normally he would be estopped from doing so. ---
**Author:** ![Hawkeyeop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/958977/32.png) [@Hawkeyeop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hawkeyeop)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/33 "2010-11-09T15:34:21Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > And anyone who claims that line is not arbitrary doesn’t know what he’s talking about. This is why I’m with the op. There isn’t a right and wrong answers here. Wanting women to have full choice over their body is a reasonable. Wanting fetus’s to have a shot at life is also reasonable. There is no answer to which of these thing is more important, but I will say thinking one is doesn’t mean you don’t care at all about the other. I have some very specific beliefs, but they are based on my own version of morality, and I don’t expect to convince anyone of it. Plus there are some legitimate practical issues. I’d rather focus on issues where I’m more confident that there are right answers to. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/34 "2010-11-09T15:34:49Z")
The ability to control my body seems fundamental to me as a person. A society that did not afford me that control would be making a pretty clear statement about what they think of people like me. No thanks, I’m not your brood mare. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/35 "2010-11-09T15:35:13Z")
Please. There is no 100% safe, 100% effective method of birth control (outside of abstainance). And if you think anti-abortion people do not have abortions, you are very naive. Read [The Only Moral Abortion Is My Abortion.](http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/anti-tales.shtml) The pro-choice crowd thinks abortions should be safe, legal and decided by the woman and her doctor. The anti-abortion crowd thinks it should be illegal and decided by the government and their beliefs. I’ve always loved Andy Rooney’s line 'I don’t know if I’m pro-choice or pro-life. But I do know I like pro-choice people better than I like pro-life people." In reference to estoppel, contracts are only legal between _adults._. Any contract with a child is illegal and unenforceable. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/36 "2010-11-09T15:40:18Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > It depends a lot on whether you’re a woman; generally, women tend to be more rabid on the subject (in either direction) than men. I have to disagree on that. My observation is that the really whackadoodle-to-the-point-of-dangerous pro-life advocates are generally men. 8 people have been killed by anti-abortion activists in the US; all were killed by men, most recently Dr. George Tiller, who was murdered in public while attending his church by Mr. Scott Roeder. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/37 "2010-11-09T15:42:52Z")
> [@Hawkeyeop](#): > > This is why I’m with the op. There isn’t a right and wrong answers here. Wanting women to have full choice over their body is a reasonable. Wanting fetus’s to have a shot at life is also reasonable. There is no answer to which of these thing is more important, but I will say thinking one is doesn’t mean you don’t care at all about the other. I have some very specific beliefs, but they are based on my own version of morality, and I don’t expect to convince anyone of it. Plus there are some legitimate practical issues. I’d rather focus on issues where I’m more confident that there are right answers to. Yes…if only there were some way that the choice could be left up to the people involved. There must be some way that you could allow people to make that choice on such a fuzzy issue…some way or another…hey, I’m just spitballing here, but how about if we made abortion a choice between a woman and her doctor? This way, she could use her own judgement, her own version of morality, to make this choice. Call me crazy… ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/38 "2010-11-09T15:43:00Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Please. There is no 100% safe, 100% effective method of birth control (outside of abstainance). And if you think anti-abortion people do not have abortions, you are very naive. Read [The Only Moral Abortion Is My Abortion.](http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/anti-tales.shtml) Isn’t that a big “outside of”? That’s what I was trying to say. If you have sex, you run the risk of getting pregnant, and then you can’t say “Oh, why is this fetus inside me?” The fetus is inside you because you had sex. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/39 "2010-11-09T15:43:57Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > Estoppel is a legal term which means (in an inaccurate nutshell) that you cannot exercise your legal rights to the detriment of another if they have acted on your assurance that you will not. > > For example, a son goes to his father, and asks if he can build a house on the father’s land for himself and his new wife. The father says yes, of course he can. > The son builds the house, and the father then takes an action to force the son of the land. > Normally he would be estopped from doing so. Promissory Estoppel begins with a promise to another upon which the other reasonably relies. Explain to me how getting accidentally pregnant is a promise, and how a fetus – or even a baby – has the capability of relying reasonably on the promise, or even comprehending it. Honestly that’s just stupid. It doesn’t make any sense. As usual, “cutesy” reasoning shows an anti-woman bias – if you fucked voluntarily its just a like promise the government can enforce. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2010, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017/40 "2010-11-09T15:45:35Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Isn’t that a big “outside of”? That’s what I was trying to say. If you have sex, you run the risk of getting pregnant, and then you can’t say “Oh, why is this fetus inside me?” The fetus is inside you because you had sex. Then you approve of abortion in cases of rape? Obviously the other women, who willingly had sex, are sluts who got what they deserved. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-abortion-rights/560017.md?page=3)