For me, abortion rights are about independence. An early fetus/embryo is a unique individual human genetic entity, but is not independent. It is parasitic. As a result, the woman’s right to determine what goes on in her body trumps the entity’s right to stay in the womb. She has the right to terminate the pregnancy. It’s about her rights regarding her body, not her rights regarding the fetus’s body. The fetus loses out because there’s no way to give it the right to life, without taking away the woman’s right to her body.
Morally, I find it reprehensible to deliberately create a unique individual so that you may assert your rights and destroy it.
I *personally *see moral issues with using abortion as birth control. I don’t like abortion. I have nothing against people who don’t see it as a moral issue… but let’s just say if I impregnated a woman, and she had an abortion, it would be a very difficult thing for me to go through.
I always believed in women having the right to terminate a pregnancy, but always *understood *the pro lifers’ side of the argument. It’s just practical, and even responsible for some women to terminate their pregnancy if they aren’t ready to have children.
I might not respect a women as much if I knew she had multiple abortions because she’s not trying to be careful to avoid getting pregnant.
Most people who are pro-life can see the other side of the argument - that Government shouldn’t have the kind of power to intrude on a woman’s right to make a (usually difficult) personal choice. It’s just that they’re grudgingly willing to give the Government that power for the greater moral good of saving what they perceive to be a life.
Most people who are pro-choice, on the other hand, can also see the other side of the argument - that abortions are a sad, unfortunate thing. It’s just that freedom is important to them and they’re willing to let the individual woman decide for herself whether to abort or not.
The problem with the attitude of - “I’m single and I’m gonna fuck like crazy. If I happen to get pregnant, I’ll just get an abortion. No big deal, it’s not like it’s a real human anyway.” - is that a strongly pro-life person could point to that and say, “see - there’s a typical, immoral liberal pro-choicer who doesn’t care about killing babies left and right”. When in reality, that is NOT the attitude of a typical pro-choicer. But someone who’s sitting on the fence or not very strongly pro-choice could easily be swayed by that picture painted of pro-choicers.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
To nearly anyone. What do you think you are eating? Plants are just as alive as animals. For that matter, just sitting around doing nothing your immune system is constantly killing microorganisms that are just as alive as you or I am.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but you’re not very likely to second-guess eating plants or microorganisms years down the road, or find yourself wondering what type of personality the plants/microorganisms would have had, what they would have grown into, where they would have gone to college, etc.
It’s possible to be pro-Choice and still strongly dislike abortions, but my opinion hardly matters anyway: I’m male.
I think only female legislators should be allowed to vote on laws that invade the rights of females specifically. (The ban on males voting might be unconstitutional so might have to be voluntary.)
I’ll even take it a step further - it’s possible to be pro-Choice and have one of those “Abortion Stops a Beating Heart” bumper stickers or be in one of those groups of people lining the streets with anti-abortion signs.
A lot of people, when they see those bumper stickers or signs, automatically assume that the person is a right-wing pro-lifer, who’s trying to influence law-makers and/or pro-choice individuals. But it is possible to believe that Government should not have that kind of power, yet be so saddened by the idea of abortions as to want to try to persuade as many women as possible not to have abortions as a personal choice.
True. It’s possible the nose bleed I had this morning was the first sign of Ebola. But it’s far more likely I had the air conditioner on too high last night and it dried out my nose.
I understand the sentiment. But I fear that the overwhelming majority of women already share the sentiment, and protesters lining the street don’t do much besides burdening an already sad and difficult decision with social pressure and stigma.
I agree with you. I’m not trying to take away a woman’s right to have a thousand abortions if she wants them. But I can still think it’s an immoral waste of healthcare resources.
I see abortion as killing although I’m very emphatically pro-choice (and kindly note that I said “killing”, not “murder”).
I would probably be a little creeped out by the woman doing this, although I’d still want her, and not some surrogate decision-maker, left in charge of making such decisions.
Hence not up to me to pronounce it “wrong”. But disturbing to me, yeah, that seems awfully fucking cavalier and casual.
The morning after pill is available over the counter in a lot of states. In California and Nevada, you can get the generic version of Plan B from Walmart for something like $17. I’d imagine the higher costs are in states where the pill is still by prescription only.
This exactly. I’m prochoice but generally personally anti abortion. A few months ago, I had a pregnancy scare, so I started researching my options available here locally. We have one clinic in our city that does abortions, so I started gathering information in case I needed to do that. I never thought I’d get an abortion, but faced with the possibility of being pregnant right now, I knew this was not the time for me to bring a child into the world. I could rationalize and deal with the emotions of getting the abortion itself, but you know what literally made me sick to my stomach with nervousness?
The protesters.
I know protesters line up outside that clinic every single day. Thinking about facing them literally reduced me to tears. And frankly, I don’t know why-- I disagree with their strong arm tactics, their religion, their nonsense, but for whatever reason, THEY were what made me cry when thinking about this situation. Imagining getting screamed at, condescending, whatever else they do, was just awful.
Fortunately, I was fine and didn’t need to do anything, but just facing that possibility made me hate those morons who line up outside those clinics more than I ever have. I can’t imagine how the women who face them to go get services actually feel.
I’m not pro-choice, so I really shouldn’t be in this thread, but I just wanted to thank you for this explanation. The most often repeated reason I have heard for someone being pro-choice is “A woman has a right to do what she wants with her own body.” But to me, it seemed like it really came down to pro-lifers thinking of a fetus as a life, and pro-choicers not. I don’t think anyone would assert that a woman had the right to grab a hammer and beat her kid senseless, because even if she has the right to pick up the hammer and move her arm in a downward motion, inflicting harm on her kid is morally wrong.
But with this explanation, I’m finally starting to see how someone might consider a fetus a life form but still be pro-choice. While you haven’t changed my mind, you did present a new perspective for consideration.
I see that a bunch of posters have (quite understandably) described the theoretical woman as incredibly stupid, thoughtless, not able to make good decisions that would cost her less money and expose her to less risk, etc.
My question is: Doesn’t that mean it could be a good thing she’s having the abortions instead of being responsible for a child/multiple children?*
I mean, do you really think a person that irresponsible, that stupid, that etcetcetc … AND who quite clearly doesn’t WANT a child and is willing to go to what many would say are extreme/extraordinary lengths to prevent it . . . should actually have and raise kids? I mean, even ignore her life/happiness/well-being, and think of the potential kids dependent on her.
and realistically you can’t just say something like, “well, she could put all of them up for adoption!”. Adoption isn’t magic and it is NOT guaranteed that a baby will pop out and be immediately put into the arms of a loving adoptive couple. So there’s still very real risk the woman could be “stuck” with the kid, or abandon it, or worse.
Yes, but the question is clearly about making a conscious choice to use it in lieu of other methods of birth control. Not as a backup for when other methods fail, or even due to occasional carelessness. Those are quite different. There are a lot of things that a person might reasonably consider morally acceptable as a last resort, but not as a first resort.
I would say there is something wrong with it, but not specifically because of anything directly related to the abortion. I do think there’s a moral obligation to take reasonable precautions.
Consider, most people who are pro-choice to any reasonable degree would probably say that there’s nothing particularly wrong with a woman in a committed relationship who uses multiple forms of birth control, definitely not in a place to emotionally, financially, or otherwise to support a child, and gets pregnant and decides that an abortion is the right decision. Compare that to a woman who just doesn’t like the feel of condoms, doesn’t bother to take birth control, or use any other means, and then proceeds to have unprotected sex on a regular basis. Even without accounting for any of the complexities associated with abortion, I think even the most pro-choice individuals would have at least some issues with her behavior. They may argue that it’s still her right to have one, but that doesn’t necessarily make her actions that led to needing one morally just. In fact, that’s the whole point, that law does not exist to legislate morality, only rights.
So yeah, there’s something wrong with it, but it’s in the same vein as a man who similarly has wanton unprotected sex, or anyone else who engages in inherently risky behavior but doesn’t take reasonable precautions.