# Is it possible to be Pro-Choice AND think that fetus=baby? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 6, 2011, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013 "2011-05-06T21:23:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/241 "2011-05-09T18:34:46Z")
> [@classyladyhp](#): > > You had a major role in putting it there except in the case of rape. So? You keep saying that as though it matters. It doesn’t. My body doesn’t stop being mine when I get pregnant, and I’m allowed to reserve my organs for my own personal use. ---
**Author:** ![Quia\_Sic\_Dico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/bbce88/32.png) [@Quia\_Sic\_Dico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quia_Sic_Dico)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/242 "2011-05-09T18:37:47Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Sure I am. I think it’s perfectly moral to kill anyone who’s hijacking my body. Then imagine if someone handed you a newborn baby and said you had to take care of it, or it would die. That would put even greater demands on you and your body than just being pregnant. Now, in order for your moral code to be logically consistent you would have to believe that you were well within your rights to kill that baby, as that too would be hijacking your body. ---
**Author:** ![kevlaw](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kevlaw/32/2281_2.png) [@kevlaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kevlaw)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/243 "2011-05-09T18:42:38Z")
> [@Quia\_Sic\_Dico](#): > > But that third option is not quite sound, ethically speaking. Surely, you believe that premeditated killing of an adult human being is morally wrong, and even if you thought that some people believed otherwise you wouldn’t simply, on that basis alone, grant them the right to go around murdering people. The whole point of having laws is to force everyone within a society to abide by the same moral code. What you’re really saying (I think) is that there are some ethical decisions which shouldn’t be dictated by laws because they are essentially a private matter. Moral choices span a broad spectrum from “it’s clearly bad for society and everyone agrees it is wrong” (eg premeditated killing of an adult human being) to “it’s none of society’s business and most people think it is just fine” (eg. oral sex between husband and wife) with lots of gray area in the middle. In the _clearly bad_ case, I’m fine with having laws and I’m fine with imposing the (vast) majority’s opinion on the tiny minority who think otherwise. At the other extreme, I am constantly amazed at how much conservatives want government to intrude in our private lives (repeal the oral sex laws now!). Abortion is somewhere in the middle and complex enough that I don’t trust politicians to decide it. Let the woman and her doctor decide. Sometimes they’ll choose something different than you or I would choose - but I prefer that to the all-powerful state that you apparently prefer. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/244 "2011-05-09T18:45:08Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Sure. You could accept [the Violinist](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment/) argument put forward by Judith Jarvis Thompson: > **[A Defense of Abortion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violinist_(thought_experiment))** > > "A Defense of Abortion" is a moral philosophy essay by Judith Jarvis Thomson first published in Philosophy & Public Affairs in 1971. Granting for the sake of argument that the fetus has a right to life, Thomson uses thought experiments to argue that the right to life does not include, entail, or imply the right to use someone else's body to survive and that induced abortion is therefore morally permissible. Thomson's argument has critics on both sides of the abortion debate, but it continu In "A... “As Thomson recognizes, this analogy is most applicable in cases of rape.” Not quite as applicable in pregnancies that result from consensual sex. The analogy also breaks down after viability because you are no longer merely removing extrivating yourself from the life support system, you are killing the violinist. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/245 "2011-05-09T18:49:23Z")
> [@Quia\_Sic\_Dico](#): > > But that third option is not quite sound, ethically speaking. Surely, you believe that premeditated killing of an adult human being is morally wrong, and even if you thought that some people believed otherwise you wouldn’t simply, on that basis alone, grant them the right to go around murdering people. Well, there is the death penalty which I vehemently oppose, but others find morally correct. That’s premeditated death that some people seem cool about. There is not enough evidence that a fetus’ right supersede the mother’s to make a hard and fast law. There is enough evidence that individual human’s do have such rights. That’s the vague area I am referring to! As much as you proclaim it’s not vague- it actually is. There are many situations that are evolving and vague. Take same-sex marriage. I would never force a religious institution to recognize or perform such marriages, but I believe the govt should sanction it. > [@](#): > > The whole point of having laws is to force everyone within a society to abide by the same moral code. What you’re really saying (I think) is that there are some ethical decisions which shouldn’t be dictated by laws because they are essentially a private matter. No that is not the point of laws. It’s to protect individual rights from the untoward actions of others or the government. Everyone can have their own moral code with in that broader context. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/246 "2011-05-09T18:49:55Z")
> [@Quia\_Sic\_Dico](#): > > Then imagine if someone handed you a newborn baby and said you had to take care of it, or it would die. That would put even greater demands on you and your body than just being pregnant. Now, in order for your moral code to be logically consistent you would have to believe that you were well within your rights to kill that baby, as that too would be hijacking your body. She is certainly well within her rights to say “no, not doing it” and put the baby down and walk away. Heck, even if she accepts it for a time, she’s also within her rights to say “no, not doing it” and walk away up to a certain point in states with Safe Haven laws. Or through the mechanism of adoption. ---
**Author:** ![kevlaw](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kevlaw/32/2281_2.png) [@kevlaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kevlaw)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/247 "2011-05-09T18:52:32Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Once you cross the 26 week mark (third trimester), I think we are talking about homocide that can only be justified if the life or physical health of the mother is at stake. For personal reasons, I personally have an immoral stance that permits the abortion of viable fetuses that have been diagnosed with severe disabilities but I recognize that it is infanticide > > I think personhood might start before viability but I have no problem telling women that its too late to get an abortion in her third trimester unless continuing the pregnancy would kill or disable her. We allow doctors and patients to make all kinds of difficult moral decisions. Any reason to think that they could not handle this choice too? In other words, do you think there is a massive pent-up demand for late-term abortions that would turn into a flood if we allowed doctors and mothers the choice? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/248 "2011-05-09T18:53:00Z")
> [@Ace309](#): > > Do you deny that many people who have posted in this thread have stated that they are pro-choice and think that a fetus is a baby? If you do not deny that, then you acknowledge that it is possible to think that a fetus is a baby and be pro-choice. Note that to acknowledge this you need not agree with them. > > Also, has anyone in the thread referred to a baby or fetus as a clump of cells? If not, how does that claim relate to the question posed by the original poster? > > ETA: I can’t quote correctly. 🙂 Of course you can be pro-choice and think that a fetus is a baby. It just means you value a woman’s right to choose over the life of her baby. i.e. you are ok with a form of infanticide. ---
**Author:** ![DirkGntly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d9b06d/32.png) [@DirkGntly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DirkGntly)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/249 "2011-05-09T18:55:08Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Sure. You could accept [the Violinist](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment/) argument put forward by Judith Jarvis Thompson: Invalid argument, in my mind, mostly because it pre-supposes that you are being FORCED to support the comatose violinist. With a pregnancy (EXCEPT in cases of forced sex, such as rape, etc.), the person wasn’t forced in the initial decision that resulted in the pregnancy. A better thought experiment, and more useful to the deeper discussion, would be one in which you make a choice that RESULTS in your being forced to support the violinist. Say, for example, you were a drunk driver, and the resulting auto accident resulted in the violinist becoming comatose. Now are you more morally obligated to sustain the violinist? ---
**Author:** ![Kiber](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kiber/32/317_2.png) [@Kiber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiber)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/250 "2011-05-09T18:57:14Z")
I totally thought that whole Violinist analogy was going in a different direction. I thought it would talk about how, everyone can recognize that someone is a concern violinist simply by listening to them play. Much like, everyone can recognize that a baby in her mothers arms is a person. Both represent one end of a spectrum. At the other end of the spectrum - you have someone who has never played a note of music. If you give them a violin and a bow - the do not instantly become a concert violinist. Sure - they have all the necessary parts - a violin, a bow, arms, fingers, a brain, etc. But without a lot of other things happening (years of practice, training, etc.) - they most certainly are not a concert violinist. There is a continuum along which they progress from being a novice to a concert violinist. In much the same way, when an egg and a sperm get together, they now have the necessary parts (well, dna mostly) to make what will eventually become a person. But countless things need to happen first for that potential person to become an actual person. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/251 "2011-05-09T18:58:46Z")
> [@Quia\_Sic\_Dico](#): > > Then imagine if someone handed you a newborn baby and said you had to take care of it, or it would die. That would put even greater demands on you and your body than just being pregnant. Now, in order for your moral code to be logically consistent you would have to believe that you were well within your rights to kill that baby, as that too would be hijacking your body. Well, I’d have to imagine it, since that doesn’t actually happen. And apparently you have to imagine pregnancy, or you’d never have typed up any of the rest of that silly drivel. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/252 "2011-05-09T19:01:44Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > Because that’s an effective way to argue with pro-life people who get all tied up in irrational, emotional arguments about how “you’re killing a human being”, “it’s a baby, how can you want to kill a cute little baby”, and so forth. > > In my opinion it’s very simple. What’s unique and special about humanity is the human mind. Self-awareness, and the capacity to think, and plan, and learn, almost without limit. That is what defines a person. A fetus has none of those qualities, no matter what you call it - a baby or a clump of cells. Its brain is still not operating beyond an animal level. > > It is the fact that murder involves the termination of the existence of a human mind that makes murder abhorrent to me, not the termination of the functioning of a bunch of other biological systems. > > A fetus does not have a mind. It can’t think, it can’t reason, it isn’t aware of its own existence. I really don’t care if its respiratory and circulatory systems, and other plumbing, are well-developed enough to survive on their own. > > What I value is the human mind. If you want to terminate a pregnancy before the baby’s mind has had a chance to develop, go ahead and kill it. It’s worthless to anyone but the parents, and if they don’t want it, kill it. > > The “potential” for developing into a person has no value to me. Am I supposed to feel guilty about all the sperm cells whom I have robbed of the potential to develop into a person by not having sex in the past week? Am I murdering countless innocents every time I use a condom? No. > > And I don’t want to hear anecdotes of how someone’s baby learned to play Vivaldi on the uterine wall at 24 weeks. Even when they’re newborn, babies have an enormous amount of brain development still ahead of them before they reach mental parity with dogs. And we euthanize dogs on a regular basis when they’re unwanted. > > Murdering people is bad. Unborn babies are proto-people of some sort, but not people yet. And in my opinion valuing unborn babies with no minds simply because they exist (sometimes valuing them more than people with fully-developed minds) is the result of a gross failure to recognize what it is that actually makes human life special, valuable, and worth protecting. In your opinion how does the act of birth make a baby more capable of thinking reasoning and self awareness? I assume you are not OK with killing newborn babies right? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/253 "2011-05-09T19:03:29Z")
> [@The\_Lovely\_Margo\_Lane](#): > > This is precisely the argument that crystallized my thinking. I have no problem thinking of the unborn as people, even as having rights - but that doesn’t negate the woman’s right to dominion over her own body. It may be the moral, correct, kind choice to allow another person to live off/in your body, but I can’t feel it’s right to compel that choice, especially for the state to compel it. You realize that there are severe limits to that analogy right? It is most applicable to defend pre-viability abortions that result from rape. ---
**Author:** ![Quia\_Sic\_Dico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/bbce88/32.png) [@Quia\_Sic\_Dico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quia_Sic_Dico)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/254 "2011-05-09T19:03:46Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > I think most of us assume that’s the argument and the position. Your post is no revelation to most of us. I, for one, just think your conclusion is wrong, but you are entitled to it. You seemed to have overlooked my posts in which I explain that being pro-choice doesn’t mean you cannot have this view too. You can just agree that someone else can come to a different conclusion. But if someone (as many "pro/life"rs do) believes that abortion is equivalent to murder, then surely you can understand that they don’t feel they can simply stand by and let other people have the choice of murdering what they believe to be innocent human beings, just like you wouldn’t make homicide legal just so that other people can decide for themselves whether they want to kill someone or not. I would like to point out, once and for all, that I am in fact very much pro-choice myself. I’m even tilting in the direction of being pro-parental-right-to-infanticide (in some cases only). I think WhyNot summed up my own opinion pretty well, perhaps with the exception that I don’t really care if the mother has an absolute right to be rid of the child or not, but only about the consideration and appraisal of the interests of the mother and the foetus (and anyone else involved) ---
**Author:** ![Feyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/fbc32d/32.png) [@Feyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Feyrat)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/255 "2011-05-09T19:10:00Z")
> [@Quia\_Sic\_Dico](#): > > The point I’m trying to make (not quite as articulately as I wish I could) is that to many people who take the “pro-life” position, a foetus isn’t just nominally equivalent to a baby, because they don’t think it makes any difference to the moral priviledges of the foetus/baby whether it has been born or not. Because they believe it is already a fully fledged human being during gestation, they accord it the same human rights within the uterus as without, and can’t tolerate that it should be killed simply because it causes inconvenience to some one else. Thus they find abortions, or foeticide, exactly as morally appalling as I imagine you find infanticide. Except the point is, at the point where abortion is legal, the foetus is NOT a baby. There’s a third option here you’re not considering. That you can believe a late-term fetus = baby, but that first-trimester fetus is NOT a baby, and so it’s fine to eject them if they are in the mother’s body against her desire or ability to bear a child. This whole “what’s the dividing line between a baby just before birth and just after birth” is a total smokescreen. We don’t abort babies just before birth, so that question has nothing at all to do with abortion - it’s an emotional misdirection. Someone in the BBQ pit gave the absolute best point to the abortion discussion I’ve ever seen: if you are saying that by engaging in sexual congress you are consenting to pregnancy, then by the same reasoning, by entering your car and traveling any distance in it, you are consenting to be in a car crash. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/256 "2011-05-09T19:15:38Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > So am I the only one who thinks, that in the Violinist argument, I do have a moral duty to stay hooked up to the violinist? Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t be happy that this happened to me. I wouldn’t want it to happen, and I wouldn’t volunteer to hook myself up to the violinist. I can’t even guarantee I would stay hooked up to the violinist. But it seems to me that if I am hooked up to the violinist, I have a kind of moral obligation to stay hooked up, if I know unhooking myself will kill him. I think the question is whether we can legally force someone to stay connected. While there may be some moral duty to stay connected, there is generally no duty to rescue except in some limited relationships (parent/child relationship just happens to be one of those along with innkeepers and trainconductors/fligth attendants). This situation is different because the pregnant woman was not abducted in the middle of the night unless she was raped and she is doing more than simply disconnecting herself if her fetus is viable. ---
**Author:** ![Quia\_Sic\_Dico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/bbce88/32.png) [@Quia\_Sic\_Dico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quia_Sic_Dico)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/257 "2011-05-09T19:29:15Z")
> [@kevlaw](#): > > Moral choices span a broad spectrum from “it’s clearly bad for society and everyone agrees it is wrong” (eg premeditated killing of an adult human being) to “it’s none of society’s business and most people think it is just fine” (eg. oral sex between husband and wife) with lots of gray area in the middle. > > In the _clearly bad_ case, I’m fine with having laws and I’m fine with imposing the (vast) majority’s opinion on the tiny minority who think otherwise. > > At the other extreme, I am constantly amazed at how much conservatives want government to intrude in our private lives (repeal the oral sex laws now!). > > Abortion is somewhere in the middle and complex enough that I don’t trust politicians to decide it. Let the woman and her doctor decide. Sometimes they’ll choose something different than you or I would choose - but I prefer that to the all-powerful state that you apparently prefer. I do not prefer an all-powerful state. I think all forms of consentual sex between adults should be legal, and I think that is a clear cut case of “private morality” if ever there was one. But the reason for it being a private matter is that it doesn’t harm anyone; abortion on the other hand could, if you take the stand that a foetus is morally a human being, harm, and in fact kill, someone, which takes it right out of the private sphere of free choice. If you take that stand, that is. You and I, it seems, at least agree that as the interests of the mother who doesn’t want to be pregnant overrides the foetus’s interest (if it can truly have any) to stay alive and not experience pain, the harm caused by allowing the abortion is less than by forcing the woman to have the child. What I’m really trying to say is that we cannot expect people who are against abortion because they consider it infanticide to respect or support the pro-choice cause. ---
**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:** [May 9, 2011, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/258 "2011-05-09T19:31:17Z")
> [@DirkGntly](#): > > Invalid argument, in my mind, mostly because it pre-supposes that you are being FORCED to support the comatose violinist. With a pregnancy (EXCEPT in cases of forced sex, such as rape, etc.), the person wasn’t forced in the initial decision that resulted in the pregnancy. By that logic I shouldn’t allowed to get treatment for food poisoning, since after all nobody _forced_ me to eat that hamburger. How dare I have those poor innocent bacteria poisoned! ---
**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:** [May 9, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/259 "2011-05-09T19:40:39Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > No, you have it backward, and I’m confident I was clear the first time. I’m suggesting women who make impulsive, short-sighted decisions are more likely to get unintentionally pregnant (with abortion being one resolution) _and, independently_ abuse their kids. It’s the poor decision skills that can lead to situations where abortion is considered, not a willingness to abort that leads to poor decision skills. I never said anything about a willingness to abort that leads to poor decision making, but rather that women who abort are prone to poor decision making, which is basically me repeating what you said. There is a rather direct correlation between unintended pregnancy rates and abortion rates. It’s not a stretch to believe that, taking what you said at face value, that if we look at who obtains the majority of abortions that women who make impulsive, short-sighted decisions would obtain more than their counterparts on the basis of them becoming unintentionally pregnant more often than their counterparts. > [@](#): > > And to clarify even further, getting an abortion is not inherently a bad decision. The bad decision was doing something that got you pregnant in the first place. It’s not? I’m sure you wouldn’t think that way if you were aborted. > [@](#): > > And even further… among the group of women described, it seems plausible to me that the incidence of rape might be higher than among the general population (i.e. these women are poor and undereducated, suggesting they generally live in worse neighborhoods, etc.) A woman who has been raped could get an abortion, _and the trauma of that assault makes her more violent with her children_. I daresay this could be a significant factor, yet the word “rape” doesn’t appear anywhere in the study report. Was it even considered? Rape accounts for less than half a percentage of all abortions. Even if you assumed double that (1%), we’d be talking about a minority of women. Even if you times that by ten, you’d still only be talking about 5% of the women in the surver. Furthermore, I’d be interested in seeing something which shows that rape victims are more likely to abuse their children, because I highly doubt that is true. At all. > [@](#): > > Again, you’re stating it backward. My premise is not that abortion makes women abusive. It’s that poor decision skills can lead to them getting pregnant and/or abusive. I didn’t say you said abortion makes women abusive. I said that women who have abortions might be predisposed to being abusive. > [@](#): > > As an incidental note, the data for this study was drawn from a much earlier study conducted in 1984-5, and of the women in study who’d had on more more abortions, the average time elapsed since their first abortion was 7.6 years. I daresay abortions performed in the 1970s carried more stigma than they do now, so that’s another potential problem with using this study to speculate on current attitudes - it’s basically analyzing women who got abortions in the years just after _Roe v. Wade_. Is there a difference between how those women felt and how a woman getting an abortion in 2005 might feel? I suspect so. I dare say, at least in the U.S., abortion attitudes have returned to their pre-1973 levels, so it’s not much of an argument to the contrary. > [@](#): > > Oh, I’m confident that trying to prove a direct link will be difficult. Rather, I’d go for a transitive approach, in which I cite studies that show: > > 1. Lack of abortion access reinforces poverty, and > 2. Poverty leads to increases in child abuse. Lack of abortion access doesn’t reinforce poverty. > [@](#): > > That is, if my pro-choice stance was based on trying to prevent child abuse, which it is not. Rather, I’m for individual rights and self-determination, including the right to not have to continue an unwanted pregnancy. That the woman is poor or not, that she might already have children or not, that she might have future children or not… all irrelevant. Yet the unborn are not afforded self-determination? > [@](#): > > And who gets to define that, and possibly override her best interests in the process? I’m not comfortable with letting the state do that, personally. Call it my wacky respect for personal liberty and the rights of the individual against the oppressive machinations of socialist government control. > > “Socialist” is the generic label for “bad”, right? If a thread ever pops up about a Jehovah Witness denying their child a blood transfusion when it would save the child’s life, I’ll be sure to remind you that the government should stay out and let the child die, all the while accusing anyone of disagreeing to be socialists 😉 ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013/260 "2011-05-09T19:43:00Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m sure you wouldn’t think that way if you were aborted. Thread winner! Who could argue with this bit of genius? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-be-pro-choice-and-think-that-fetus-baby/581013.md?page=14)