Pro abortionists: Multiple abortions ok?

Great Debates
21

Because if the two things were happening now, immediately, if the option was precautions now or an abortion now, I suspect there’d be a considerably smaller amount of abortions. People are just willing to take the risk and forego immediate unpleasantness even when the later unpleasantness instead will be a while in coming. That’s a pretty natural thing for humans to do, i’d say, but doing so over and over again does seem to me like a person who hasn’t learnt a lesson. I’m not sure i’d go with “condemn”, but it doesn’t appear all that smart.

It’s because we need to take that into account, to the extent that we can. Here’s an example; as a kid I once had boiling oil on my hands. As you can imagine, that was not pleasant. Today, I can’t fully understand or remember how painful that was. Again, that’s pretty much just a human thing to stop us going nuts. But it doesn’t mean that, were I to be uncareful around boiling oil in the future, that i’m not being a bit silly. We all have to take into account that unpleasant things expected in the future will likely be a lot worse at the time than they appear to be right now.

Certainly it is not a great argument for everywhere; I suspect there are places where it is not so easy, yet still possible. You did ask for reasons against, though, so I thought i’d pitch all the ones I could think of and not just the best ones.

They scare me not so much, because pro-lifers do not have a vast amount of power nor can provide a huge amount of politicla pressure. But I am scared of what they can do; they can attempt to change the law to outlaw abortion, or smaller pieces of legislation to take away smaller amounts of that ability. If those who try to take away rights that I believe in have not insignificant power, I have no problem with agitating your own side or disagreeing with them, but it doesn’t make much sense to do things which either really piss them off or can be used by them as ammunition to convince others.

Don’t worry about it. It’s a debate that’s often argued with placards, insults and hatred; being a little hard-headed is pretty good for us. :wink:

22

I think Revenant Threshold’s original post covers most of the reasoning quite well. Especially the ‘looking bad’ thing. I think it’s the same reason pro-choicers don’t bring up many other arguments about abortion– that it can be a very responsible choice, that many women don’t feel shame or regret after the procedure but relief, that the very women who have multiple abortions may not be best suited for immediate motherhood.

‘Multiple abortions’ sounds so scandalous, but I do know a few women who’ve had two and at least one who’s had three. None of them are particularly irresponsible– they’ve just been having sex for 10+ years without intending to make a baby every time, which I guess is a no-no, too, for many pro-lifers. Mistakes happen. Different kinds of mistakes happen at different points – teenage ignorance (I can’t get pregnant my first time!), college stupidity (I’m allergic to condoms!), general misinformation (What do you mean these meds make the pill less effective?). Why on earth would I find one ‘forgivable’ but no more?

23

I’m not hung up on being called “pro-abortion”. I’m pro- whatever decision a pregnant woman wants to make; if that’s abortion, then in her case I’m pro-abortion. I think it should it be accepted as a completely normal procedure and I think a lot of the discourse coming from both sides is stigmatising, as well as not being accurate in a lot of women’s cases.

If someone’s had multiple abortions, I would wonder why they didn’t start taking better precautions, because I would assume that most women would prefer the prevention to the cure. But if she has no problem with it, shrug it’s none of my business and I certainly don’t think there’s anything immoral or unethical about it.

24

How would you feel about a person who ate so much that he got morbidly obese, and had to get an operation to reduce his weight. He is told to diet, but did it again, and again, and again. Assuming there is no medical cause for this, you could support his right to get this operation while still feeling he is an idiot. Prevention is always better than dealing with the consequences, and considering the cost of health care we all have a moral obligation to try to avoid unnecessary expenses. That someone ignored advice on diet and had a heart attack doesn’t mean not to treat him, but if it happens over and over you need not feel too much respect.
So object to someone having avoidable multiple abortions for purely economic and medical reasons, not moral ones. Which wouldn’t make me want to forbid them, but maybe make her pay for them herself, no insurance.

25

I am pro-abortion. I approve of abortion as birth control (even though it wouldn’t be my method of choice) or for any other reason, as many as you want.

26

Abortion should be safe, legal, and affordable; no problems here with the number of times a woman chooses that option. Given that there are methods besides dilation and curettage (RU486, for example) which could involve no more time than it takes to visit the pharmacy and drink a glass of water, the elements of emotional and physical trauma don’t need to enter into the equation any more.

27

My great-aunt had six daughters.

Then she had twelve abortions.

Then she had six more children.

The midwife who’d been doing her abortions told her (paraphrased as I wasn’t there): “There’s ways to avoid pregnancy. I’ve told you what they are. You refuse to use them. Don’t tell me you get pregnant when your husband walks in the door because not even you are dumb enough to believe that one. If you want to risk your own life by continuing to behave like a rabbit in heat, go ahead, but I’m not going to let you risk my practice. Don’t call me again unless you’re at nine months.”

While abortions were illegal at the time, the specific language used (this is translated from Catalan and the original was less polite) indicates that the midwife wasn’t so much worried about the cops grabbing her as pissed about my great-aunt’s amazing level of stupidity.

Personally, I dislike using abortion as an anti-baby method because it’s one of the methods that put all the onus on the woman and do nothing to avoid STDs. Pregnancy prevention should involve everybody who’s going to be involved in the sex.

28

I’m pro-choice, and I’m afraid, while I think multiple abortions are unfortunate, I think that they are unavoidable. I don’t for example see how it would be possible to limit them.

You’d have cases where the 1st abortion was as an irresponsible teen under parental pressure, the 2nd was for foetal abnormality, the 3rd was because that relationship brokedown and money was tight, the 4th was due to rape and the 5th was because she didn’t feel emotionally ready for parenthood…

If you’re pro-choice enough to agree that the decision to terminate was justified in each individual case for that woman, you can’t justify any limitation on numbers of abortions.

The decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy will be made by each person concerned based on their own beliefs and the circumstances at the time.

While I don’t think using abortion as birth control is the smart option , nor the safest, nor the most economical, nor the most far-sighted, I don’t see a way of preventing it that doesn’t erode reproductive freedom.

I don’t have to agree with the choices women make, but I do want them to be free to make them.

29

Bingo. I had two abortions (and one daughter) during the fifteen years in which I had frequent (protected) sex before I got my tubes tied. Let’s do that math, shall we? If we make the extremely conservative assumption that I had sex, on average, three times per week for fifteen years, I had sex 2,340 times. Now, I am so very abysmal at math that I’d appreciate correction, but I think that’s a .001% rate of failure for my regular birth control. Allow me to assure everyone here that you absolutely know someone who has had multiple abortions, and that it’s not necessarily the result of ‘irresponsibility’.

Nzinga, I didn’t find my abortions to be at all ‘traumatic’. But it’s not how I’d choose to spend my day off, either.

And I will go on the record as “pro-abortion” to the exact same extent that I’m “pro-appendectomy”. I’d prefer not to need it, but I’m certainly glad to have it as an option.

Amen.

30

No one is Pro-Abortion, Just as every one is Pro-Life, some people believe you have a choice on how a woman uses her body and some believe all sex acts should result in a child, of course once they are born then the pro-birthers do not care if they are fed or taken care of properly unless someone else does it.

A good share of so called pro lifers do not want a woman to use birth control. Life…as I have often stated, started many eons ago, a firtile egg is not a chicken and a human firtile egg is not yet a human. Yes, it contains human life but so does the sperm so thousands of human lives in the pro-life thinking die with each ejaculation.

There is a big difference between religion and biology. No one is making a woman have an abortion.

Monavis

31

I’m not a “pro-abortionist” (coz I don’t think abortion should be mandatory or anything), but I do believe that abortion should be continue to be safe and legal, as well as less restricted by laws as they are now. So, with that said, how is it any of my business what (and how many) medical procedures the chick next to me in the grocery store (or my co-worker or my sister) has had or will have? It is absolutely none of my business. And, although I think abortion would be stupid as a stand-alone birth control method (why have multiple surgeries when you can take a pill?), I don’t remember any woman asking me to choose her birth control method for her either. Therefore, unless it has to do with my own birth control or abortion choices, I have no opinion.

32

Yes.

Do pro-lifers have a issue with women getting pregnant and having multiple children to keep their welfare benefits? Or getting pregnant and selling the child to an adoptive couple, a gay couple, a single person, a child molester?

33

What if one believes the first part but is indifferent to the second?

Anyway, what’s with giving the people the right to free speech? It makes 'em think they can speech anytime they want, for free!

34

I can’t really consider my self a pro-abortionist.

I mean, they have a tough job, what with outside pressures and threats from crazies, but I don’t support them more than other doctors.

I do not support legalized abortion “because a fetus is not a person”, but would restate the matter as maternal rights trumping fetal rights.

I’m sure there are women who “abuse” the right to abortion. Other rights are abused in varying ways (Fred Phelps and the right to free speech, for example) but that doesn’t justify eliminating them or feeling embarassed because one supports those rights.

35

Since you appreciate correction, I’ll concur that you are abysmal at math. Three pregnancies out of 2340 tries is just less than one in eight hundred, which is about .125%, or only 125 times as great as you made it.

However, failure rates for contraceptives are usually given per year, not per instance of intercourse (pace Diogenes the Cynic), which gives you one failure per five years, or 80% reliability.

36

This is pretty much me as well - it doesn’t matter if the fetus is a person or not, because a woman should have the right to decide if that fetus exists in her body or not. If the fetus could be removed and be viable - then go for that. But in the first or second trimester that isn’t an option (and I’m not sure who would pay for the care required).

I would never get a tattoo, I think people who do so are often (not always) shortsighted who get tattoos, and if you do choose to get a tattoo, it should be something done in moderation and with discretion. But I think that if you want to cover your entire body in art, that’s your business, its your body and it should be perfectly legal to ink every square inch of yourself.

37

I told you! Thank you for correcting that.

That said, my point remains, that birth control, even used consistently and correctly, is not 100% effective.

And while I understand why birth control failure rates are measured per annum for the collective, I, like all individual women, became pregnant by acts of intercourse, as opposed the the passage of measured periods of time, so I see the 3/2340 number as being at least equally useful.

38

I had a lot to say, but I hate the way abortion threads go down, absolutely hate them. So I’ll summarize:

  1. I am pro-abortion.
  2. As many abortions as needed; the alternative is unwanted children and that’s way worse in my book.
  3. Abortion, like rape, does not necessarily have to be traumatic, so let’s not pile more guilt on the women when they don’t feel trauma.
39

I think a woman should be legally entitled to have as many abortions as she chooses.

I also think she should be able to choose an abortion early in the pregnancy for whatever reason she wants, whether it’s on account of birth defects in the fetus, the gender of the fetus, the fact that she just doesn’t want to be pregnant or changed her mind about wanting to be pregnant, whatever.

That doesn’t mean that I’m not entitled to personally disapprove of her choice for whatever reasons appear valid to me. I can disapprove of other people’s reproductive choices all I want if they conflict with my own ethical principles. But that doesn’t entitle me to restrict other people’s reproductive freedom.

And yes, a primary reason most people disapprove of multiple abortions is simply that most women hate having unwanted pregnancies. Finding out that you’re pregnant when you don’t want to be, and going through the process of opting for and then having an abortion, is an experience that most women seem to feel absolutely sucks. We’ll go through a lot to avoid finding ourselves in that situation.

So naturally, when a woman has multiple abortions, most people assume that she has repeatedly and negligently put herself in a situation that she hates and that is painful for her to deal with. And that seems stupid.

Heck, you’re entitled to have as many car crashes and trips to the emergency room as you choose, too. But if somebody routinely got drunk and crashed her car and wound up in the hospital, we’d say she was being stupid.

There’s also the fetal-life issue mentioned above. I tend to agree that while an early-term abortion isn’t killing a person, it’s killing something, and I think pointless killing is something it’s preferable to avoid. It’s wasteful and disrespectful of life, just as the “pro-life” people say it is.

I am. If somebody’s having what I consider unnecessary medical procedures that carry non-negligible health risks, I may well disapprove of that. I’ll keep my disapproval to myself because it’s not for me to interfere with other people’s choices, but I can still disapprove.

40

You cracks me up. Every time.

It is important to me if one is indifferent to the second. Because I am only trying to understand some things, here.

If, like appleciders, one doesn’t think of a fetus as a person, but still supports abortion, I can understand that. I can see where she is coming from.

But if you are pro-choice, and you don’t think of a fetus as a person, which is the reasoning that I have heard from tons of Pro-choicers, then it doesn’t make sense to me for you to say, “I think it is wrong, however, for a woman to have them repeatedly…they should be rare.” I can’t wrap my head around that.

Now, I realize there are plenty of pro-choicers that think a fetus is a person, but that the mother’s rights trumps the rights of the ‘baby’.

To hijack a bit…When I first started trying to grapple with my ideas on abortion, I wasn’t able to accept this, though I considered it. I tried to imagine anyone, anyone, chained to me and demanding that I feed and help them. If you walked up to me right now, and handcuffed a child to my wrist…I decided that anyone that was chained to me in that way, I would not feel comfortable killing and I would have a problem with anyone else who kills in that instance. So I am probably dead wrong about that, but that is what I believe right now, untill someone can give me a compelling argument to think otherwise.

Voyager, I don’t think comparing this to weight-loss surgery is a good comparison. Weight-loss surgery is a huge ordeal in terms of cost, recovery, risk, success rates…just completely different than abortions which can pretty much be an in at lunch, back to work in an hour kind of deal. I’m not kidding. I went back to work.

ETA: This ‘it’s killing something’ thing doesn’t fly with me as much as applecider’s ‘lesser being’. Lots of folks kill something, all the time, without really needing to. From hunting, to eating lobsters, to swatting flies. So just because you feel it is something, doesn’t make sense as a reason for condemning the woman for killing it.