Pro choicers: What (if anything) is wrong with using abortion as a form of birth control?

Because she may not always not want babies, and I hate to see people making long term plans when they don’t realize they’re doing so. It’s one thing if she knows the risk and chooses it anyhow, but I find a lot of women don’t *know *that scar tissue from surgical abortions can inhibit future fertility.

It’s not a moral issue, but it could be alarming. A fetus is potential life. Or rather, it’s alive with the potential to live independently. Like others have said, if you’re having multiple abortions without caring about what that could be, I have to wonder what happens when you actually DO decide to keep a fetus.

I think you would have a really, really hard time arguing that those things effect one another. Like anything, it depends on the circumstances.

I think there’s a wide range of beliefs about morality when it comes to being pro-choice. (There may also be a range for the pro-life crowd, but I don’t get that impression.)

I am pro-choice, but I think that it’s a complicated issue, ethically. I think the line we’ve more or less drawn at viability is a pretty good one, given that we’re dealing with a continuous process of development and the law needs to draw a bright line somewhere. I think the argument over whether a fetus qualifies as a “person” is misguided (See Judith Jarvis Thompson’s essay A Defense of Abortion). I also disagree with people who liken a fetus to a tumor, or an abortion to clipping one’s nails.

However, there are a lot of things that I think are varying degrees of “wrong” that I don’t think should be illegal, and abortion definitely falls in the category of things I think are sometimes wrong (according to my own moral reckoning) but that I don’t think we should legislate against. I definitely agree with the statement that abortions should be safe, legal, and rare.

I think using abortion as birth control is irresponsible (barring some pretty corner-case scenarios), but part of living in a free society is accepting that sometimes people make choices that you think are bad ones.

This is a fascinating hypothetical; I’m 100% pro-choice while still being anti-abortion for myself (I’ve got a date booked to get my tubes tied so I never have to make that choice), but if a woman wants to get an abortion, that is her choice. If she wants to get multiple abortions, still her choice. If it’s okay morally once, it’s okay morally multiple times.

That said, she does need to make better choices; I just don’t think it’s a moral issue.

Leaving aside health and cost issues, no, I don’t see a moral issue with abortion as birth control. But I don’t think in the real world you can put aside practical issues like health and cost.

I don’t have any cites, but I would be surprised if the side effects of birth control outweighed the health consequences of repeated abortion. I would also expect women who chose abortion over less invasive forms of birth control would be more likely to make bad health decisions overall as well. IOW someone who says “I don’t like condoms so I’ll just get an abortion” is more likely than average to be someone who says “I don’t have to quit smoking just because I am pregnant”. Etc.

Regards,
Shodan

Well, if she’s going to get an abortion anyway, she doesn’t have to. :slight_smile:

Off-topic, have you considered the Essure procedure? Non surgical way of becoming permanently sterile.