# Most pro-choicers have it all wrong. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 19, 2006, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118 "2006-07-19T02:50:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/41 "2006-07-19T12:55:59Z")
> [@David Simmons](#): > > I’m dealing with your last question, not with the OP.This seemed like a hypothetical side issue to me. I understand your point. It just seems to me that an argument should take into account as many possibilities as possible: both current issues and potential future issues. That’s not to say you have to base a decision on every future possibility, but it pays to think about them. At least IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/42 "2006-07-19T13:00:09Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > The problem is that whether or not the other ‘individual’ has a ‘life’ is difficult to pin down precisely. Even if that were true (which it isn’t), that would actually _support_ the OP’s position rather than disprove it. According to the OP, the relevant deciding factor is the LIFE of the individual – not considerations such as “It’s my body!” This is pretty commonsensical. If the unborn is a living human being, then the whole “It’s my body. I can do what I want with it” argument uses an erroneous premise. If the unborn is a living human being, then it is NOT part of the woman’s body. It may be physically attached, but it is not part of the woman’s anatomy. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/43 "2006-07-19T13:03:30Z")
I usually avoid the abortion debate for possibly obvious reasons but I think I see where the OP is coming from. I am a male and have had two partners have terminations and two others think they were going to have to. In each case I agreed and offered all the support I could (including attending). It has always been my impression that pro-lifers and pro-choicers are aguing about two different things and that the discussion is futile. Pro-choice (colour me and my partners) is not a moral position it is a legal position. The law says we can do this and that is what we choose to do. Never did any decision involve a discussion of the morality of the procedure. This may be coloured by the fact that myself and all my partners were medical professionals but nonetheless our actions were guided by expediency. Pro-lifers however are attempting to ensure that they do not compromise the rights of another living creature - pretty much the basis of morality and ethics. Since no-one can agree when a foetus has any rights of it’s own, I imagine it would be best, for those trying to be moral, to choose the earliest possible moment. But as I say we pro-choicers aren’t being moral, we are being pragmatic - you will find plenty of posts in any thread where pro-choicers happily admit that they don’t care “what” theya are killing, they just have the right to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/44 "2006-07-19T13:07:31Z")
> [@Mayo Speaks!](#): > > The Hell? I don’t know how to respond to this. It seems rather insulting to humanity. How can you not care about intentionally causing the death of a sentient person? How do you feel about giving up half of a pair of conjoined twins so that the other may live a better, more normal life? Happens all the time. I recently read a statistic that only 25% of separated conjoined twins result in both kids surviving. Is it OK? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/45 "2006-07-19T13:15:40Z")
> [@](#): > > There is no “my body, my choice” > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > The hell there isn’t. That’s the ONLY issue as far as I’m concerned. Q.E.D. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/46 "2006-07-19T13:18:07Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > I understand your point. It just seems to me that an argument should take into account as many possibilities as possible: both current issues and potential future issues. That’s not to say you have to base a decision on every future possibility, but it pays to think about them. At least IMHO. What is that old saw? Oh yes, “A difference of opinion is what makes horse races.” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/47 "2006-07-19T13:18:22Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > This is pretty commonsensical. If the unborn is a living human being, then the whole “It’s my body. I can do what I want with it” argument uses an erroneous premise. If the unborn is a living human being, then it is NOT part of the woman’s body. It may be physically attached, but it is not part of the woman’s anatomy. Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but I always took the “it’s my body” thing to mean “It’s my body and I will decide whether or not it plays host to a developing fetus”, rather than “It[the Fetus] is [part of]my body” ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/48 "2006-07-19T13:32:33Z")
I don’t have time to carefully read all the responses right now, but I think the OP is right on. In the abortion issue, there are too many people on both sides who just don’t get, or even wilfully misunderstand, where the other side is coming from. So they keep shouting past each other, yelling slogans that are irrelevant to the other side’s argument. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/49 "2006-07-19T13:39:21Z")
> [@](#): > > **Menocchio** said: > No one has the right to abandon a child. If a woman gives birth, and then decides she doesn’t want to be a parent, then she’s on the hook as much as the father is regarding financial obligations. Except that in Pennsylvania there is something called Baby Safe Haven. Any woman or girl who has recently given birth can legally drop her newborn off at a hospital, no questions asked not even her name, and be done with it permanently. They keep the brochures for this program in the lobby of the building where I work (I work on a college campus), so I picked it up and read it once. That is how the program is described in the brochure. So the argument that she can’t decide she doesn’t want to be a parent after the birth is actually, at least in PA, not true. _She_ can decide not to be a parent. The biological father can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/50 "2006-07-19T13:40:26Z")
> [@Thudlow Boink](#): > > I don’t have time to carefully read all the responses right now, but I think the OP is right on. > > In the abortion issue, there are too many people on both sides who just don’t get, or even wilfully misunderstand, where the other side is coming from. So they keep shouting past each other, yelling slogans that are irrelevant to the other side’s argument. Did you mean this to be as ironic as it appears? ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/51 "2006-07-19T13:42:04Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > If in the future it would be possible to remove an unwanted child from a woman’s womb at any point in her pregnancy and raise it in an incubator would you advocate for her to be allowed to give up her rights to the child if the father wanted it to live. Or, how about the guy who owns the incubator? Should he be allowed to dispose of the child because he wants to use it to raise chicken eggs instead? If and only if transplanting the embryo is less or exactly as invasive as aborting it would be, then I’d agree that it would be immoral to abort if the father wished to raise the child. I don’t see how that would be possible, so I guess the answer is no, unless that condition is met. For me, both the issue of the woman’s medical autonomy and the fetus’ status as a rights-bearing being are relevant. A woman has the right to control her own medical decisions. If the President of the United States desperately needed a bone marrow transplant, and the only possible donor refused to give it, then the President is SOL. He doesn’t have the right to force another person to make a medical decision to prolong his own life. This situation doubly true to abortion situations, because the clump of cells that make up an embryo in early pregnancy simply isn’t human by any meaningful moral standard. It’s non-sentient, it’s microscopic, it’s cells number in the dozens, not the trillions. Many such beings end up thrown away with the rest of the menstral waste, the parents never knowing it ever existed. The President, or the superglued baby, are at least capable of some kind of thought or suffering ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/52 "2006-07-19T13:45:26Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Since when does the desire for a better life trump another individual’s right to life? Abortion does not involve another individual’s right to life. ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/53 "2006-07-19T13:50:43Z")
> [@catsix](#): > > Except that in Pennsylvania there is something called Baby Safe Haven. That’s a lesser of two evils situation. Better she abandon it at a hospital than a dumpster. It’s like a needle exchange program, or a no questions asked gun buy-back program. It doesn’t condone the behavior, but the program is still in the better interests of society. If the father were to somehow find the child, then he could still sue the mother for support. In fact, in many cases, if he asked for government assisstance, he’d be required to demand support from the other parent. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/54 "2006-07-19T13:54:39Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Even if that were true (which it isn’t), that would actually _support_ the OP’s position rather than disprove it. According to the OP, the relevant deciding factor is the LIFE of the individual – not considerations such as “It’s my body!” No, the OP thinks that the deciding factor is the HUMANITY of the fetus, not whether it’s merely alive. Just because something’s alive doesn’t mean it’s a person deserving of rights. > [@](#): > > This is pretty commonsensical. If the unborn is a living human being, then the whole “It’s my body. I can do what I want with it” argument uses an erroneous premise. If the unborn is a living human being, then it is NOT part of the woman’s body. It may be physically attached, but it is not part of the woman’s anatomy. This misstates the argument. The argument is not just that it’s PART of the woman’s body but that she has a right not to play host to a parasite. ---
**Author:** ![Mayo\_Speaks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mayo\_Speaks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mayo_Speaks)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/55 "2006-07-19T14:16:45Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Abortion does not involve another individual’s right to life. Well, there you go. **Diogenes** has ended the most heated debate of our time. Thanks for playing along everyone. In all seriousness, just because you say it loudly and often doesn’t make it so, no matter how much people like you and Ann Coulter want it to work that way. Your position is not indefensible, but you have to actually defend it rather than stating it as the gospel truth and expecting us to accept that. > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > This misstates the argument. The argument is not just that it’s PART of the woman’s body but that she has a right not to play host to a parasite. You should ask if Hallmark is hiring. I can see the card now: “Congratulations: that parasite you’ve been hosting magically turned into a human being after birth!” Mayo ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/56 "2006-07-19T14:23:35Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Abortion does not involve another individual’s right to life. Even if we grant that to be true (which I deny), then once again, that claim **supports** the OP’s claim, instead of disproving it. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/57 "2006-07-19T14:23:39Z")
My wife’s OB-GYN during her first pregnancy said that fetuses were basically parasites. She used the word “parasite.” I thought it was a pretty apt way to describe them. They live off a host in a non-symbiotic way and give nothing back. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/58 "2006-07-19T14:24:07Z")
> [@Mayo Speaks!](#): > > Well, there you go. **Diogenes** has ended the most heated debate of our time. Thanks for playing along everyone. > > In all seriousness, just because you say it loudly and often doesn’t make it so, no matter how much people like you and Ann Coulter want it to work that way. Your position is not indefensible, but you have to actually defend it rather than stating it as the gospel truth and expecting us to accept that. Stick around; I’m sure **Dio** is more than capable of holding his end up; in this particular case, he replied to a one-line argument with more than one line; what’s your problem? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/59 "2006-07-19T14:27:40Z")
> [@Mayo Speaks!](#): > > Well, there you go. **Diogenes** has ended the most heated debate of our time. Thanks for playing along everyone. You’re welcome. > [@](#): > > In all seriousness, just because you say it loudly and often doesn’t make it so, no matter how much people like you and Ann Coulter want it to work that way. Your position is not indefensible, but you have to actually defend it rather than stating it as the gospel truth and expecting us to accept that. In all seriousness, you’re the one with the burden of proof. Just because you imagine that something is a person, doesn’t mean it is one. The default is that it isn’t. I can imagine that a chicken is a person if I want to. That wouldn’t mean that you had any burden to prove it wasn’t. A non-sentient blood clot is not a “person” in any realistic, pragmatic, non-faith-based sense of the word. ---
**Author:** ![Autumn\_Almanac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d26b3c/32.png) [@Autumn\_Almanac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autumn_Almanac)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/60 "2006-07-19T14:49:40Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > In all seriousness, you’re the one with the burden of proof. Just because you imagine that something is a person, doesn’t mean it is one. The default is that it isn’t. Why is this? Why shouldn’t the default position be to extend human rights to the entity in question, unless there’s a sufficiently compelling reason not to? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118.md?page=4)