# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![Snag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Snag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snag)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/141 "2006-07-20T03:08:39Z")
Fetuses? What the heck are you talking about? Fetuses? Excuse me, the so-called pro-life side (at least pro life until it’s born) are talking about blastocysts. Did you see what did the president vetod today? A bill that might use clumps of about 100 cells at the pre-embryo stage for stem cell research. This is over blastocyts, about 400,000 of which already exist and are doomed to be thrown away or to perish over time. Bushco are also holding up an FDA approved morning after pill because some believe that not allowing a pre-blastocyst clump of cells to the uterine wall is murder. They want Roe v Wade outta there and want the definition of a human citizen to be at the moment of conception. You are chasing one big red herring trying to argue with the anti-choice folks about fetuses. Or late term abortions. It’s actually about privacy. It’s about a woman having her doctor able to legally advise her about all of her reproductive choices and to assist her once she makes these choices. It’s about her right to make all of those choices, not only whether or not to have an abortion. It’s about social engineering from a crowd that only wants to fund abstinence only sex ed programs despite their dismal failure. Roe was built on the Griswold decision that allowed Connecticut married couples to use birth control. A privacy decision. Mark my words, if Roe is overturned they’ll attack Griswold next. Because it is also built on decades of privacy rights that some would like to see overturned. Again, attempting to control peoples sexual appetites and freedoms is social engineering. With that crowd, I wouldn’t think it unlikely, if they have their way, to start hearing people objecting to a mixing of the races again 20 years hence. More social engineering. Now ask yourself, what kind of people are against privacy rights and why? This is the question the pro choice side ought to be posing to the public. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/142 "2006-07-20T03:41:31Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > This is one of the very few issues that is faced exclusively by one sex. I don’t see the need to clumsily “balance” it by trying to make analogous rights for the other sex. Sure, it’s unfair. That’s sexual dimorphism for you. If you want to fix it and make sure pregnancy issues affect everybody equally, you’ll have to go back in time some 1.2 billion years and impose tidiness on evolution. I don’t have to go into the past to fix anything. The future will take care of it for us. ---
**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:** [July 20, 2006, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/143 "2006-07-20T03:51:41Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > I don’t have to go into the past to fix anything. The future will take care of it for us. Get yer stinkin’ pseudopods off me, you damn dirty amoeba! ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/144 "2006-07-20T04:22:53Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Get yer stinkin’ pseudopods off me, you damn dirty amoeba! Heh! I read this as if Crow was saying it! (Just watched the MST3K version of “Gamera Vs. Zigura” last night where Crow gives another one of his renditions of, “They blew it up!”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/145 "2006-07-20T04:48:11Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Everything with pro-choice, by consenting to sex you are _chosing_ to assume the risk of pregancy and the responsibility to that life you may create. Now if for some reason you think that the way you create offspring is to eat a fish with your mate and don’t understand that sex has the possibility of pregnancy then you did not chose. If you didn’t chose then you can have your offspring killed during the time it is dependent on you by having it removed. Ooh…yeah. Now I get it. That’s a very clever, enlightening way to interpret the meaning of the phrase. Jeeeeez…you might be on to something! Pro-choice at the bedroom stage! On second thought, I’ll stick with the standard definition of the term and practice _responsible_ sex by aborting any unwanted pregnancy within the legal time limits if I so choose. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/146 "2006-07-20T05:04:20Z")
> [@wm--](#): > > Society (aka “outsiders”) does not allow a mother to kill her 1-day-old infant, no matter how much better her life might turn out if she did. This line of reasoning means absolutely nothing to one who accepts the premise that abortion is a moral wrong equivalent to murder. Point is the stem cell argument is about an organism which can only be seen with a microscope… This is not equivalent to a i day old child. We are discussing way before birth. You can go back to sperms if you think microscopic life has the same rights as a mother or a born child. Should sperms be wasted. They are life. It always gets to your definition of when life starts applying to me and usurps my life ichoices and my reasoned decisions. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/147 "2006-07-20T05:58:51Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > It might become clearer if we recall that I originally posed the scenario in response to **MrDibble** ’s agreement/endorsement of your post: > > See, you’re saying that the pregnant woman has the absolute right to opt out of the role as host, causing the demise of the fetus. I was wondering whether (and why or why not) you would consider the mother of a newborn infant to have the right to opt out of the role as parent, causing the demise of the infant. What about a response to my response, BTW? I do believe that the mother has a “right” to opt out as a parent. Note that this does not mean _actively_ kill her baby, but refuse to care for it? Sure I believe she has that “right”. I \*would not \*consider her a nice person if she did (assuming she had the option of abortion), but would still say it’s her “right”. Even more so if abortion was somehow denied her. As a practical matter, it is only on your desert island that this is _necessarily_ equivalent to infanticide. In non-hypothetical Societies, it’s only\* necessarily\* neglect, and Society then takes whatever actions it would, with regard to both the mother and baby. I’ve quoted “right” above because I’m not sure that’s quite the word I’d use. Certainly, I don’t believe in absolute,abstract human rights, so I’m just trying to explain what weight my persoanl morality attaches to things. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/148 "2006-07-20T07:12:47Z")
I’ve got news for you guys. All the casuistry about what is a person and what isn’t, what rights one has or hasn’t, is just a big barrel of red herrings. At the end of the day, it comes down to pro-choicers saying, “We want to get abortions for our own private purposes, and we have the law on our side so you can’t stop us.” It is a raw assertion of power. Sadly for that side, it invites the attitude on the part of the pro-lifers of, “OK, then we’ll get the law back on our side and stop you from doing it.” In other words, if you gratuitously assert power over something, something or someone is going to assert power over you. Since time immemorial, reproduction hasn’t been about individual “rights”; it’s been about the facts of biology and society asserting its prerogative over them. You can’t fuck until you get married. You can only fuck your spouse after you get married. You’ve got to raise the kids that you create. You can’t abort your babies–we need them to build a strong Folk! Pro-choicers are essentially saying, “Screw what society wants; what _I_ want is the only important thing. And I’ve got rights, dammit!” Pro-choicers have won in many Western societies because those same societies actually needed to depopulate (or at least reduce the growth rate) a bit; abortion served a social purposes. Plus, hedonism is good for consumption. But there is an awful lot of momentum to fight in going the Me-Me-Me! route to the extent we have, and we have not been in this state for more than a few decades. Abortion “rights” as we know them will not last. And the concept of an individual as armored with rights against a society to which it owes no responsibilities is most definitely a loser in the long run. The above is with all the moral considerations aside. It is based solely on an understanding of how power within society works. ---
**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 20, 2006, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/149 "2006-07-20T07:37:23Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > It gels just fine; you simply jumped to a conclusion. I’m only ignoring the “issues of personhood and sentience” as they relate to _a fetus_. Since I don’t equate fetuses with babies (the primary difference being whether or not one is located inside the body of a person), why should I equate the personhood of a fetus with the personhood of a baby? I have not actually jumped to any conclusion at all; I’m merely trying to understand your position; it just seems highly strange to me that you wouldn’t consider personhood and sentience as discriminating criteria between a fetus and a baby; if you don’t use those, what’s left? Location - as you said - but what’s the significant _qualitative_ difference between a fetus latched onto the uterine wall and a baby latched onto a nipple? There’s _dependence_ - a fetus _in utero_ is entirely dependent upon the female host for survival, but so is our unfortunate hypothetical desert-island baby entirely dependent on its mother. Unless there are some other discriminating factors you haven’t mentioned, I can’t see any reason why you couldn’t just give a simple answer to the hypothetical. ---
**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:** [July 20, 2006, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/150 "2006-07-20T09:02:52Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I’ve got news for you guys. All the casuistry about what is a person and what isn’t, what rights one has or hasn’t, is just a big barrel of red herrings. > > At the end of the day, it comes down to pro-choicers saying, “We want to get abortions for our own private purposes, and we have the law on our side so you can’t stop us.” It is a raw assertion of power. Garbage. It’s an assertion of a woman’s existence as a person and not a brood mare. It’s not a red herring, it’s the truth, which is why opposition to abortian is religious; relgion is all about lies, delusions, and oppression. > [@Aeschines](#): > > Sadly for that side, it invites the attitude on the part of the pro-lifers of, “OK, then we’ll get the law back on our side and stop you from doing it.” They’d do that anyway, as their goal is to reduce women to slavery, Taliban-style. > [@Aeschines](#): > > Since time immemorial, reproduction hasn’t been about individual “rights”; it’s been about the facts of biology and society asserting its prerogative over them. You can’t fuck until you get married. You can only fuck your spouse after you get married. You’ve got to raise the kids that you create. You can’t abort your babies–we need them to build a strong Folk! It’s about men treating women as property - all those rules were ignored by men. > [@Aeschines](#): > > Pro-choicers are essentially saying, “Screw what society wants; what _I_ want is the only important thing. And I’ve got rights, dammit!” Pro-choicers _are_ a major part of society; the majority in many places. And yes, they do have rights. > [@Aeschines](#): > > Pro-choicers have won in many Western societies because those same societies actually needed to depopulate (or at least reduce the growth rate) a bit; abortion served a social purposes. Plus, hedonism is good for consumption. They’ve won because they are in the right, and society has become more enlightend over time. > [@Aeschines](#): > > Abortion “rights” as we know them will not last. So you think women will be reduced to slavery again ? How many do you intend to kill to make examples of ? ---
**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 20, 2006, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/151 "2006-07-20T09:14:22Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Pro-choicers are essentially saying, “Screw what society wants; what _I_ want is the only important thing. And I’ve got rights, dammit!” I don’t really see why that’s wrong; there is no point in society even existing if the invdividuals that it comprises are slaves to it. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/152 "2006-07-20T11:38:27Z")
> [@Der Trihs](#): > > It’s an assertion of a woman’s existence as a person and not a brood mare. We become mares and studs quite quickly when that is what society demands of us. > [@](#): > > It’s not a red herring, it’s the truth, which is why opposition to abortian is religious; relgion is all about lies, delusions, and oppression. But you are secular, atheistic; you don’t believe in a higher “truth.” So your “truth,” however free of lies/deluions/oppression, can be replaced at any moment with a “truth” equally so free yet, somehow, entirely opposed to your own. > [@](#): > > They’d do that anyway, as their goal is to reduce women to slavery, Taliban-style. Wow, the US was as bad as Taliban-ruled Afganistan in 1974? How horrible it must have been. > [@](#): > > It’s about men treating women as property - all those rules were ignored by men. And women, too, of course. Both sexes are equally pawns of society. > [@](#): > > Pro-choicers _are_ a major part of society; the majority in many places. And yes, they do have rights. But those “rights” are, I must repeat, simply an assertion of having the Supreme court behind them, or indeed an assertion of one’s majority status. The hearts + minds battle has never been won, as it has in the case of racial discrimination. > [@](#): > > They’ve won because they are in the right, and society has become more enlightend over time. Nope, you know just as well as I that, were it not for RvW, etc., the battle would still be raging and neither side would have “won.” I would say that, considering the rise of the Fundies, society is less “enlightened” than it was in 1974. But one reason that the Fundies rose in fury is RvW itself. > [@](#): > > So you think women will be reduced to slavery again ? How many do you intend to kill to make examples of ? Your rhetoric is frothing at the mouth, my friend. ---
**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 20, 2006, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/153 "2006-07-20T11:51:46Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > But you are secular, atheistic; you don’t believe in a higher “truth.” So your “truth,” however free of lies/deluions/oppression, can be replaced at any moment with a “truth” equally so free yet, somehow, entirely opposed to your own. Are you suggesting this exhange of truth would happen just arbitrarily? And in any case, believing in higher truth doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be in possession of such truth, even if it exists, does it? - it just means you’ll be more reluctant to change your mind about it. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/154 "2006-07-20T12:33:02Z")
Pro choice People look to the privacy and rights of the already born,and when personhood takes place. In Mr. Bush’s veto he used already born children as example,he pointed out that since the cells were left to grow it would produce a child,and stated that if stem sell research were available these children would not exist. But he didn’t seem to remember that if a person used birth control they would not exist either,or if a person is sterile, or the man’s sperm was not alive at the time of intercorse they would be no child either. I wonder if he ordered chicken and was given a fertilized egg, or a pollenated apple blossom, would he say I had chicken and apples for lunch? One tends to forget when they are using such things for an argument; what if, Hitler’s parents, Bin Laden’s and other despots were not born. It works both ways. Monavis ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/155 "2006-07-20T13:05:16Z")
> [@DtC](#): > > Terminating a pregnancy is one perfectly acceptable way of taking responsibility for it. Killing one’s offspring because you consentually engaged in the activity that you know has a chance of creating it is NOT taking responsibility for you action. > [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Sounds like ignorant women get a pass while **knowledgeable women get punished.** Great. Again I am pro choice, in order to make a choice you have to know what you are getting into. If you had no idea that sex has a possibility of pregnancy you never was offered the choice to engage in life creating activities, the same with rape - you didn’t chose. And the bold part - knowlegable women are NOT punished in any way. She chose a action that created a life knowing full well that her action could result in the creation of life - that life has been given permission to develop by her actions IMHO. She was excercising her right to engage in sex, sex has conquenses including creation of offspring - life - human life. - rights require responsibility - responsibility does not mean punishment. Again I go back to running blindfolded through a room with a baby in it while having super glue on your leg. If the baby sticks you and you knew it was in there and sticking was possible, you can’t beat it to death crying ‘my body’. ---
**Author:** ![Blanche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Blanche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blanche)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/156 "2006-07-20T13:22:28Z")
Sigh, it always comes back to punishing women for having sex. I hope the anti-choice men realize that if they have their way, they aren’t going to be able to get nearly as much sex, and are going to face more false rape accusations if rape is considered a valid reason to get an abortion. ---
**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 20, 2006, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/157 "2006-07-20T13:29:14Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Killing one’s offspring because you consentually engaged in the activity that you know has a chance of creating it is NOT taking responsibility for you action. Terminating a pregnancy prevents any offspring from ever being produced. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/158 "2006-07-20T13:33:33Z")
> [@Blanche](#): > > Sigh, it always comes back to punishing women for having sex. I hope the anti-choice men realize that if they have their way, they aren’t going to be able to get nearly as much sex, and **are going to face more false rape accusations if rape is considered a valid reason to get an abortion**. Bolding mine. So you \*agree \* with \*\*kanicbird \*\* that most women are lying sluts? And you both call yourselves pro-choice? Because really, I’d thank you both to stay the hell off my side. ---
**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 20, 2006, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/159 "2006-07-20T13:46:12Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Bolding mine. > > So you \*agree \* with \*\*kanicbird \*\* that most women are lying sluts? And you both call yourselves pro-choice? Because really, I’d thank you both to stay the hell off my side. I don’t think that’s what she meant at all. I think she was saying that if an assertion of rape was ever the ONLY mean left to obtain an abortion, then more when would make the claim out of desperation. My guess is that they would probably invent fictitious and unidentifiable “attackers,” though, rather than falsely finger a real person. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118/160 "2006-07-20T13:48:18Z")
There’s way too much for me to respond to; suffice it to say we have different positions based on different premises and we’re not doing good jobs of convincing anybody they should move from theirs. I believe a fetus - a potential person, doesn’t have rights but should be given consideration. Not for legal reasons, but moral ones. Telling me I’m wrong to feel that way is a waste of your time. My analogy of killing the dog was universally misunderstood; an abortion is not euthanasia - I was talking about a healthy dog, so that the abortion analogy would make sense. You’re not aborting as an act of mercy. I wouldn’t want to be stranded on desert islands with many of you. If anybody has any raging desire to tell me one last thing, e-mail me. **Blanche** , I couldn’t get laid less often if I tried. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-pro-choicers-have-it-all-wrong/365118.md?page=9)