# I think I may be changing to an anti abortion (pro life) stance **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 8, 2015, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326 "2015-08-08T17:32:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 25
**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:** [August 13, 2015, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/481 "2015-08-13T22:43:06Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’m no expert, but it’s my understanding that most abortion laws are purposely aimed at doctors. For several reasons: hit it at the source, like you said. Kill many birds with one stone. Don’t get accused of hating women. To be fair, I think it’s only in relatively recent times (and even now, not everywhere in the world) that accusing someone of hating women is an act of criticism. Heck, in 1900 you could say that your neighbor Josiah thinks women are too stupid to have the vote, too frivolous to own property, too emotional to make decisions, and he’s also one of your best friends and a fine gentleman who obviously understands how the world works. ---
**Author:** ![truthseeker3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e68b1a/32.png) [@truthseeker3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/truthseeker3)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2015, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/482 "2015-08-15T06:19:55Z")
> [@Hiker](#): > > There is that idea that if a women accidentally gets pregnant it is somehow “her own fault because she had sex”. I believe that to be highly inappropriate. Who says I’m blaming women? It’s not like they can get pregnant on their own; and I don’t know how much abortion costs, but I’m sure it’s way less than child support. Now I’m not saying men are scum - many of them are very nice - but _some_ men are scum, and regarding pregnancy as an unforeseeable event gives them a legitimate basis to be like “I thought we were just having fun - it’s not **my** fault she decided to keep it.” ---
**Author:** ![Hiker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3be4f8/32.png) [@Hiker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiker)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2015, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/483 "2015-08-15T09:18:23Z")
> [@truthseeker3](#): > > Who says I’m blaming women? It’s not like they can get pregnant on their own; and I don’t know how much abortion costs, but I’m sure it’s way less than child support. > Now I’m not saying men are scum - many of them are very nice - but _some_ men are scum, and regarding pregnancy as an unforeseeable event gives them a legitimate basis to be like “I thought we were just having fun - it’s not **my** fault she decided to keep it.” I am not saying that you blame women. My remark was made as a comment on a detail in your goldfish-analogy. In your analogy the woman “orders” the goldfish, which by analogy means she \*chooses \*to get pregnant. There are those who believe that having sex despite not wanting a baby already represents such a choice. From that they conclude that her getting pregnant is “her own fault”. (You’ll know what I mean, if you look up the posts made by \*\*nate \*\*a little further upthread). I do not know whether this is \*your \*position. All I said is that the “ordering” detail in your analogy could be used to back up that posistion, which is why I do not like it. ---
**Author:** ![Hiker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3be4f8/32.png) [@Hiker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiker)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2015, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/484 "2015-08-15T10:32:13Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Anyway, I appreciate Canada’s utter lack of abortion laws. From that perspective, a “disallowance” (I’d rather just call it a ban) is indeed a dis-empowerment, moving in the pro-life direction from an ideal pro-choice position. If you want to create that situation, create it in the U.S. by junking all current laws and replacing it with the one you propose. This would (in many states) represent movement in the pro-choice direction. I do not get to vote on abortion laws in the US, because I am not an American. I am German so I get to vote over here. Abortion in Germany is permitted in the first trimester upon condition of mandatory counseling, and later in pregnancy in cases of medical necessity. Personally I have my reservations about the “mandatory counseling” part, but overall I support the legislation. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > And I don’t think the law you propose would catch any criminals (because there aren’t any to catch), but it _might_ make life more difficult for some innocent people who are already having a difficult time. Does a woman in the seventh month of a wanted pregnancy who suffers a mysterious miscarriage (and this is tragically common) have to be concerned that her doctor might report her to police as suspected baby-killer? Fuck that. When you have a criminal law, there are criminals to catch, unless no one is breaking the law. So when you say “there aren’t any to catch”, do you mean that no one would be breaking the law? If so, why? As for your question: Doctor-patient confidentiality is a strongly protected good in my country as I am sure it is in yours. To do as you say, a doctor would have to be dammn well sure that something is amiss before he breaks that confidentiality, because as soon as he does he risks losing his license. The same is true for the police: Before they would even start an investigation they would have to be presented with compelling evidence. The picture you are painting that every woman after a late miscarriage would have to live in fear of prosecution is a fantasy. So yes: “Fuck that.” Even In Canada the vast majority of women, who have an elective abortion, have it in the first trimester anyway, right? If we assume that women in Germany generally make the same choices, the first trimester constraint in law does not place a burden on the majority them. What the law does is to encourage them to have the abortion early, because it takes away the option to wait and have it later. Aside from the fear of prosecution you described above, what is it that makes having that option so important? > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > This incidentally raises an interesting question - when and where have abortion laws led to the greatest number of convictions of women? I suspect the actual effect is to drive doctors out of the abortion business (and perhaps there have been times when they were convicted in serious numbers), which has the effect of denying access to safe abortions rather than punishing women who get abortions. > > I’m open to edification on this point. I suppose you would have to distinguish countries that restrict elective abortions from those that entirely outlaw it. In the latter driving doctors out of the business might indeed be the point. In countries that allow elective abortions but place restrictions on them, I do not believe that the point of the restrictions is to discourage doctors from performing the procedure at all. When I compare the situation in Germany and Canada I can find no evidence that the more restrictive legislation in Germany has led to a more limited availability of safe abortions. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2015, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/485 "2015-08-15T16:41:32Z")
I’m coming in late to address the adoption issues, which I didn’t really see addressed. The last I checked, the backlog of waiting adoptive parents would be taken care of in about two or three years if most currently aborted babies were adoptable. Then you’d end up with a glut of babies. Not all babies born in the U.S. would be adoptable. Already, adoptive parents can be pretty picky. Alcohol use during pregnancy? Child of color? They aren’t the “preferred” baby. Some adoptive parents are holding out for athletic college attending white girls. Some adoptive parent PREFER international adoption because in many states laws can allow the bio parents to reclaim the baby months later - and always they can change their mind during the pregnancy. There is a lot of heartbreak potential that doesn’t disappear with international adoption (there are other, different heartbreaks there). So, no. Adoption isn’t the solution. Adoption will take care of some of the children who are born to people who don’t want to parent, but immediately, and with growing numbers, other arrangements will need to be made for those children not chosen by adoptive parents. When I estimated this out a few years ago, I figured that in five years you’d be looking at needing foster care or institutional placement for about a million kids a year. And the kids who are already born with a deck stacked against them - not white, some with birth defects, born to parents with low educations and/or poor prenatal care. ---
**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:** [August 15, 2015, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/486 "2015-08-15T17:12:53Z")
While millions of already born children are languishing in our hideous foster care system, couples are waiting to adopt a baby. That speaks volumes about them: Let the already born suffer in the system. So freaking what. We want a “perfect” baby. When my sister and her wife took two teenagers and their dying mother into their home, and adopted the girls after their mother died, they were told that what they did was wrong. The battle cry of the anti-lesbian crowd was “Let them be raised in a real family.” Like families are lining up to adopt older children? ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2015, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/487 "2015-08-15T18:14:59Z")
In countries like Chile, where abortions are completely illegal regardless of circumstances, you have women throwing themselves in front of cars, or engaging in other very dangerous strategies, to try to induce an abortion: They're going to try to get abortions no matter what. ---
**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:** [August 15, 2015, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/488 "2015-08-15T18:28:58Z")
> [@Hiker](#): > > I do not get to vote on abortion laws in the US, because I am not an American. I am German so I get to vote over here. Abortion in Germany is permitted in the first trimester upon condition of mandatory counseling, and later in pregnancy in cases of medical necessity. Personally I have my reservations about the “mandatory counseling” part, but overall I support the legislation. That’s fine. I wouldn’t support such legislation, or indeed any legislation, because the Canadian example suggests none is necessary. > [@](#): > > When you have a criminal law, there are criminals to catch, unless no one is breaking the law. So when you say “there aren’t any to catch”, do you mean that no one would be breaking the law? If so, why? Because late-term elective abortions virtually never happen, or at least I’m not aware of such, thus no-one would be breaking such a law. Granted, you and I seem to be defining “late-term” differently. > [@](#): > > As for your question: Doctor-patient confidentiality is a strongly protected good in my country as I am sure it is in yours. To do as you say, a doctor would have to be dammn well sure that something is amiss before he breaks that confidentiality, because as soon as he does he risks losing his license. The same is true for the police: Before they would even start an investigation they would have to be presented with compelling evidence. The picture you are painting that every woman after a late miscarriage would have to live in fear of prosecution is a fantasy. So yes: “Fuck that.” Heck, if there are five or ten mistaken police reports a year, that’s already five or ten more than the number of elective late-term abortions (as far as I know). This is simply not a matter I see as needing even the _potential_ of a police investigation, and I don’t like legislation that has no value and can cause harm. Fuck that, repeated. > [@](#): > > Even In Canada the vast majority of women, who have an elective abortion, have it in the first trimester anyway, right? If we assume that women in Germany generally make the same choices, the first trimester constraint in law does not place a burden on the majority them. What the law does is to encourage them to have the abortion early, because it takes away the option to wait and have it later. Aside from the fear of prosecution you described above, what is it that makes having that option so important? As far as I’m concerned, the onus is on you to prove why the option should be denied. But if I had to give a line of reasoning: A. The thing you are trying to prevent (a woman having a late-term elective abortion) is rare to nonexistent, so the ban serves no purpose. B. If the ban is enforced at all, I believe it will catch false positives, i.e. women who have late-term NON-elective abortions (or the doctors who perform them, for that matter). My concern is to avoid punishing real people who are innocent, just for the satisfaction of pursuing imaginary people who are guilty. > [@](#): > > I suppose you would have to distinguish countries that restrict elective abortions from those that entirely outlaw it. In the latter driving doctors out of the business might indeed be the point. And I wonder how total-ban countries rate in female and infant mortality, i.e. in the name of driving doctors away from abortion, are they also driving doctors away from obstetrics/gynecology in general? > [@](#): > > In countries that allow elective abortions but place restrictions on them, I do not believe that the point of the restrictions is to discourage doctors from performing the procedure at all. When I compare the situation in Germany and Canada I can find no evidence that the more restrictive legislation in Germany has led to a more limited availability of safe abortions. Well, by way of research, I checked the CIA factbook website. [The page on “Maternal Mortality Rate”](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2223rank.html) is open on my other monitor. I have not yet checked for Germany’s and Canada’s positions on the chart (I suspect the rates are both similar and low) and even if Canada’s is higher, I will still give the data. Checking now… Table subtitle: “The Maternal mortality rate (MMR) is the annual number of female deaths per 100,000 live births from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management (excluding accidental or incidental causes).” I added the first and last countries for comparison. 1. South Sudan: 2054 (as of 2006) 2. Canada: 12 (as of 2010) 3. Germany: 7 (as of 2010) 4. Estonia: 2 (as of 2010) Interesting. And the United States is #136, at 21, as of 2010. I’m happy to say provisionally that my concerns that abortion regulation will lead to increased maternal mortality are probably specious. That still doesn’t mean regulation is necessary. ---
**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:** [August 15, 2015, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/489 "2015-08-15T18:40:07Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Like families are lining up to adopt older children? For some reason, your post puts me in mind of one of the Heritage Minutes (a series of Canadian-made public-service announcements that dramatize some particular moment or movement in Canadian history): [_Orphans_](https://www.historicacanada.ca/content/heritage-minutes/orphans). There are dozens of Heritage Minutes, most of them very good, some of rather-questionable accuracy. _[Superman](https://www.historicacanada.ca/content/heritage-minutes/superman?media_type=41&)_ is pretty painful. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2015, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/490 "2015-08-15T21:39:06Z")
> [@nate](#): > > Do pro-choicers think it’s OK to use abortion as the primary birth control method? I mean, if it’s just a fetus… Granted, it’s an invasive form of birth control, but is there anything wrong with it? Wrong as in morally wrong? no, of course not. Wrong as in probably the dumbest form of birth control you could use? yeah, of course. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2015, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/491 "2015-08-15T22:41:30Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > I’ve long held the view that I disagree with abortion but that it is a woman’s body/woman’s right. A large part of this thinking was historical, that in the past women were dependent on men financially and otherwise, I am talking like 50 years ago. Since then women have made a large amount of progress and now it is quite easy for a woman to live independently. > > If a woman gets pregnant I think she should keep (deliver) the baby. If she wants no financial help from the father or if none is available, she should receive government assistance financially to help her carry and deliver the child and any and all expenses related to that. I do not know how you would legislate that, I am only talking conceptually. > > The child could be adopted if need be. Personally, I am in favor of open adoptions. If the woman chooses to keep the child and does not have the necessary finances, again, she receives financial assistance. Again, this is only a concept, I am not sure how you legislate that. > > snip. This would certainly pose quite a dilemma for the rabid, hyperconservative pro-birthers who want every fetus carried to term and delivered but sure as shit wouldn’t want government assistance of any kind for it (taxes!!!) and the mother (or any other kind of gov’t assistance whatsoever). ---
**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:** [August 15, 2015, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/492 "2015-08-15T23:20:05Z")
Well, specifically for _American_ “hyperconservative pro-birthers”, that could be a conflict, but in most other (practically _all_ other, really) liberal democracies, the social safety nets are more generous, aren’t they? A German who was far more pro-life than Hiker, for example, might easily be in favour of that nation’s relatively generous (by American standards) parental leave policies (to name just one possible metric) even if he or she wants abortion banned outright. Germany Maternity leave (weeks): 14 Maternity leave (% of pay): 100% Paternity leave (weeks): 0 Paternity leave (% of pay): N/A Parental leave (for EITHER parent, weeks): 156 Parental leave (% of pay): 67% for 52 weeks, unpaid remainder Source of payment: Mixed - social security and employer liability United States Maternity leave (weeks): 0 Maternity leave (% of pay): N/A Paternity leave (weeks): 0 Paternity leave (% of pay): N/A Parental leave (for EITHER parent, weeks): 12, each Parental leave (% of pay): unpaid Source of payment: Social security Canada’s roughly between these two. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2015, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/493 "2015-08-16T01:36:35Z")
> [@nate](#): > > Do pro-choicers think it’s OK to use abortion as the primary birth control method? I mean, if it’s just a fetus… Granted, it’s an invasive form of birth control, but is there anything wrong with it? Without getting into morality at all, it seems like an inefficient use of resources. When a surgical procedure can be eliminated by a generally well-tolerated and safe medication, we celebrate that as an advance in medical technology. Abortion can also have far reaching emotional impacts for some people, so ideally it would be a last resort and not a first option. ---
**Author:** ![nate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nate/32/13085_2.png) [@nate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nate)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/494 "2015-08-16T02:42:09Z")
I realize I’m in the minority here, but for such a scientifically-leaning place I would think there would be more condemnation of abortion. I almost get the feeling that just because you guys don’t like the solutions or consequences, you guys try to deny there is anything wrong with abortion though semantics of what you consider to be a human being. It reminds me of global warming deniers… they don’t like the thought of paying more for energy or changing the way they live, so they really want the science to be wrong and won’t accept consensus. Pro-choices think of the consequences of limiting abortions (loss of women’s rights, orphanage, etc.) so they deny that we are actually killing human beings. I know it’s human nature to do this and I’m not above that, but I’ve tried really hard over the last couple of years to convince myself that my previous position of being pro-choice was correct and moral and I just can’t do it. Any argument from the pro-choice side in this thread boils down to fear of consequence or how they are unsure _when_ a fetus should have human rights, so therefore they shouldn’t have human rights, and that’s just not convincing. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2015, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/495 "2015-08-16T04:03:32Z")
**nate** : Your rebuttal is reasonable enough, on its face, but it doesn’t appear that you really comprehend the reasoning behind the pro-choice stance. Just because you don’t agree with our viewpoint, don’t make the mistake of thinking that our viewpoint is poorly reasoned, or hypocritical, or based on denial. The absolute key, for me, is: I don’t want the government to have the power to compel a woman to have a baby she doesn’t want. I don’t want anyone to have that kind of power over our individual freedoms. A pregnancy occurs within the woman’s body, and that kind of involuntary intrusion is, to me (and most of the pro-choice side) intolerable. You disagree? Well, that’s the way it goes. But don’t make the blunder of thinking that our views are badly reasoned, because they really aren’t. They’re differently reasoned than yours are, as is obvious by the fact that our conclusions differ. But you cannot point to any actual error in our reasoning. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2015, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/496 "2015-08-16T04:11:16Z")
It’s funny that some posters have said that they became anti-abortion. If anything my (very wanted) pregnancy made me even surer that abortion rights are very important. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2015, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/497 "2015-08-16T04:12:19Z")
Insert “after having kids” before the last period. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2015, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/498 "2015-08-16T04:28:41Z")
**nate** : I don’t believe that a fetus isn’t human. It is a human, in an early, parasitic stage. I believe the mother’s right to bodily autonomy outweighs the fetus/baby/human/person’s right to life. No one should be forced to be an unwilling host to a parasitic life, and I don’t make any distinctions based on circumstance - whether the mother was raped and therefore was entirely “innocent” of causing conception to happen, or if she had safe sex and her birth control failed, or if she recklessly had unsafe sex and the inevitable happened, or if she deliberately conceived and changed her mind after the fact. The only abortions that I have a problem with are the ones performed after viability, where the mother’s bodily autonomy could be maintained through induction/elective cesarean, but they occur so vanishingly rarely that it’s a waste of time to even discuss them. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2015, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/499 "2015-08-16T04:47:13Z")
> [@Mighty\_Girl](#): > > Insert “after having kids” before the last period. Pun intended? ---
**Author:** ![truthseeker3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e68b1a/32.png) [@truthseeker3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/truthseeker3)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2015, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326/500 "2015-08-16T08:06:15Z")
> [@Hiker](#): > > I am not saying that you blame women. My remark was made as a comment on a detail in your goldfish-analogy. In your analogy the woman “orders” the goldfish, which by analogy means she \*chooses \*to get pregnant. There are those who believe that having sex despite not wanting a baby already represents such a choice. From that they conclude that her getting pregnant is “her own fault”. (You’ll know what I mean, if you look up the posts made by \*\*nate \*\*a little further upthread). > I do not know whether this is \*your \*position. All I said is that the “ordering” detail in your analogy could be used to back up that posistion, which is why I do not like it. Well, I still think the “it just happened” thing is a bit disingenuous, but I’ll concede that consent is irrelevant. Now, what if instead of a statue it was your comatose brother who was expected to regain consciousness in three months and then need six months of convalescent care. I assume it’s not ok to kill him, but I’d like to hear your reasons. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326.md?page=24) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-may-be-changing-to-an-anti-abortion-pro-life-stance/727326.md?page=26)