Pro Life people? [Yes, I DO see the other pro-life thread :)]

Great Debates
1

I’m pretty new to these forums, but let me just say that it is so refreshing to see intelligent people! I’m sorry if it pisses you off that I created yet another abortion thread (it’s exhausted, I know), but this one is completely different than Iodine’s. I’m not here to nag, act holier-than-thou, and shove morals down anyones throat.

I’m pro-choice, but I would like to talk to a pro-life person to better understand where they are coming from. I am very open minded, so this shouldn’t be too hard :slight_smile:

First off, does your stance come from a religious point of view? I am not against your beliefs but I have mine and I also would like to keep my CHOICE because it is based on (in Canadian Law) scientific principles.
A zygote/embryo in a human female is a human no doubt, I’d be the last to say it wasn’t HOWEVER, I think the problem lies in where the cutoff point is for an abort. Mine was done at 6 weeks…VERY EARLY.
Let’s assume I am in the process of miscarriage and I am going in for an abortion but I don’t know that I am miscarrying. They do an ultrasound and see that I am. To be safe, so I don’t hemmorage, they perform an abortion. What would you call that?
To protect choice and educate women about pregnancy allows us control over our bodies and that IMHO is freedom.

2

Welcome to the SDMD :slight_smile:

There are a wide variety of backgrounds among pro life folks…from liberal atheists to conservative religious folks. My stance comes from what is sometimes referred to as a “consistent ethic” of life or a
Seamless Garment

Hmmmmm…you may get some disagreement on that score from some of your pro choice allies here

I would call it (for lack of a better term) an extracted miscarriage or spontaneous abortion.

3

Sorry, but I’m not pro-life. I’m anti-life. I hate life. Bleah. Life everywhere, and it stinks. Little bacterial life crawling around on my skin. Termite life eating the floorboards in my house. Life Cereal with that annoying Mikey character. Life Magazine with its overly pretentious photographs. The Game of Life, where everybody is forced to marry and the worst thing that can happen to you is you retire to the country and become a philosopher. Life, life, life. Don’t talk to me about life.

4

beagledave says:

Not from this militantly pro choice zealot. Most of my pro choice intensity hovers around the importance of having a social system in which it is NOT (any longer) true that, all other things being equal, sex for males means pleasant frictions (plus or minus attachments, broken hearts, STDs, and/or female stalkers) whereas sex for females means all of the above plus The Pregnancy Clause: if you get pregnant you gotta stay pregnant and give birth.

My attitude is that the reproductive capacity that is uniquely female should be under the control of females, on an individual basis. If that means killing some people some of the time, my sense of them in general is that, in general, they aren’t going to kill except when necessary. I don’t think they misuse that authority more often than military commanders tend to, they being another category of people who are authorized to kill when necessary.

When sex has dramatically different outcomes for women than for men, you get an adversarial situation. We’ve done that, we’ve been there. We’re still slogging through the aftermess of it, one muddy footstep per generation. We’re on the right track by ceding reproductive control (including the right to make life-or-death decisions) to those who would be bearing the potential newborn person, i.e., the females.

Adversarial sexual states benefit (or go with, if you prefer) social systems in which the individual is substantially controlled by the social system. We feel sexual urges in very early adulthood at a time when we are still in the process of establishing identity as other-than-child. If you were a hypothetical tyrant (or tyrannical political party, etc), and you could grab the boys by the balls at such an age and tell them that in order to have access to the females they’ve got to obey you, that would be a major bulwark to your power, wouldn’t it? And if you could also tell the girls that they have to cross their legs until they’ve got a sure and permanent arrangment worked out with a boy who is earning serious wages as a tyrant-pleasing cooperative employee-person, that’s doubly cool if you see what I mean.

Adversarial sexual systems pit males against females to exploit each other (she uses him as support for self and child; he tries to seduce her sexually and deprive her of same). This is not good and more to the point is not necessary.

5

Contraceptives don’t hoit, neither. (Well, unless they’re painful contraceptives, of course.)

6

I think you’re taking the adversarial, military theme a bit far. But that’s up to you. As a pro-lifer - not rabidly but hopefully thoughtfully - I don’t think you’re doing your argument any favours by referring to fetuses as ‘people’. I’m quite happy to refer to fetuses as fetuses and newly-born humans as infants. Arguments which rely on purely emotional terms tend to get clouded quite quickly.

If a mother of a newly born infant deems it necessary to terminate its life, do you support that? If so, at what age would you not support it?

Actually I don’t. I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. What is an ‘adversarial sexual state’? Can you give me an example of ‘social systems in which the individual is substantially controlled by the social system’, perhaps contrasting it with an example of a social system in which the individual is not substantially controlled by the social system?

7

I’ve stated my attitude before, but here goes again… I am opposed to the taking of human life, on religious grounds but also on pragmatic grounds (if I say it’s OK, in some circumstances, to take human life, then some so-and-so might decide it’s OK to take mine). I am in favour of the broadest possible definition of human life, for much the same reasons.

So, as a matter of simple logical consistency, that makes me opposed to abortion. In most cases - therapeutic abortion (that is, due to medical circumstances which pose an active risk to the life of the mother) is OK in my book, on the old Jesuit grounds of caritas non sit cum tanto incommodo, you are never required to risk your own life for that of another.

However, rather than criminalising it, I’d much rather make it unnecessary. Reliable methods of contraception and sex education, ideally combined with the elimination of world poverty, should make this the sort of world where every child is a wanted child - where women don’t become pregnant without making an informed choice to do so. Yes, I’m a Utopian dreamer. The world needs more Utopian dreamers.

So… I’m in theory opposed to abortion, but, in practice, I would rather spend my time fighting ignorance, poverty and injustice. To the extent that I can, which is not much because I am but a poor feeble creature.

Oh, and if I ever become world dictator, I will make sure military commanders aren’t authorized to kill either. And I don’t know what an adversarial sexual state is, either, but it sounds bad, so I’m against it.

8

Xerxes, re my earlier post:

In general, one in which the intentions of folks of one gender tend to oppose the intentions of folks of the other gender.

In specific (since this isn’t a hypothetical situation, a courting/dating environment where males are encouraged to seek out as much sexual experience with females as they can obtain without being trapped into marriage, overcoming the expected female resistance to the idea by seducing, tricking, lying, and pressuring; and meanwhile the females are encouraged to use their sexual attractiveness (and the boys’ appetite) to lure a male into marriage and are supposed to reject sexual initiatives prior to marriage (lest they become pregnant outside of marriage and thereby ruin their social standing permanently).

You will notice that we still have remnants of this situation, but that it isn’t anything akin to being as absolute as it once was. Feminist attitudes and beliefs about the unfairness of the double standard helped bring about this change, but as a practical matter the availability of birth control and abortion have made the change possible.

Of course not. Once she checks out the newborn and counts its fingers and toes and cuts the umbilical cord and declares it to be alive, the baby is a citizen. She can give it up for adoption but she can’t kill it. (Actually, in this country, her rights taper off and end quite a bit earlier than that; you can’t get a third-trimester abortion in America just because you no longer want to continue the pregnancy for personal and undisclosed reasons. I think that is a reasonable compromise, although I’d prefer that the right had been enscribed as women’s right to control their own reproductive functions rather than a doctor’s right to perform a surgical procedure).

9

To me, the difference (perceived or otherwise) between the rights of one sex vs the other are not the issue. What is fundamental is whether the fetus has any rights, what they are, and at what point they kick in.

The problem is, this fetus is alive and quite viable long before it is born.

The question of viability is also key.

Imagine a mother and her 6 month old infant marooned on a desert island. The mother is completely responsible for ensuring food/shelter and it is clear to most people that if the mother refuses to provide them (note; not if she physically can’t) then the infant is no longer viable. She would be morally culpable in this case for the death of the infant.

In my mind the culpability extends backwards in time; that the fetus is in the womb rather than in the makeshift hut is geography.

Whether it extends back beyond pre-natal viability is a vexing question. I think sometimes that the stance taken by some is formed as much by their desire not to ‘lose control of their own bodies/destiny’ as by the (imo) larger moral question of whether it is right to end life, viable or not.

Hmm. I think you’ll find that there are a lot of young males and females out there these days who have sex on a fairly equal basis. I think you perhaps don’t give females enough credit if you assume they’re all trying to ‘lure a male into marriage’. Some are, some are happy with long-term non-marriage relationships, some are happy with more short-term flings. Some are lesbians. Some are happy, some are sad. Some are fighting stereotypes. Some fall into multiple categories and those may change over time.

10

**

I’m pro life but it doesn’t have anything to do with my religion. I believe it’s wrong to take a life… anyone’s life. It doesn’t matter if the life is in the womb or if the life is 100 years old, I just think it’s wrong.

**

Even though you were only six weeks along in your pregnancy I think that you still took that baby’s life. When I was 6 weeks pregnant I had a sonogram done because I was spotting and the doctor wanted to make sure I wasn’t having a miscarriage. Even though my baby was no bigger than a lima bean I could still see his heart beating and it was amazing. This life inside of me was growing and changing everyday and I can’t imagine doing anything to stop that process.

**

That would be considered a spontaneous abortion. My SIL miscarried when she was 8 weeks pregnant and for insurance purposes it was coded as a spontaneous abortion even though she miscarried naturally.

**

We all have control over our bodies. If you have sex, that’s your choice. You’re choosing to have sex even though you know that there’s always the risk of pregnancy, regardless of whether or not you use birth control. I think people should think about the consequences of their actions before doing stuff.

11

I am an atheist, but I believe that we need to have workable legal reproductive law, because in the future things are going to get even more compliated. We can’t argue that it is a private matter, because this is not just about one person, there are arguable other people involved.

To me, it is a matter of consent. And I believe that consenting to having human DNA implanted in your uterus is implied consent to the potential for pregnancy. Similarly, if a male implants his DNA into the female reproductive system, he is giving implied consent to be a father to that baby, no matter what the reasons he had for wanting to implant that DNA.

But this also means that reproduction without that consent cannot bind people. If you sneak into someone’s bedroom and steal a few drops of sperm and create a baby from that sperm, the person you stole the sperm from cannot be held to be the father of the resulting baby. And of course, if a female does not consent to having the sperm implanted, if it is implanted against her will, then she cannot be forced to carry the resulting baby to term.

But if people agree to heterosexual intercourse, they agree to the potential for pregnancy. I have no problem with using birth control, but again, having heterosexual intercourse while using birth control can also sometimes result in pregnancy, so agreeing to it means agreeing to the risk of pregnancy.

In the meantime, have all the gay sex, oral sex, etc, etc, etc that you want. In my opinion, heterosexual intercourse MUST be treated differently from all other forms of sex, because only hetersexual intercourse (or other forms of sex where sperm cells might accidentally contact the female reproductive system) carries the possibility of pregnancy.

I am hopeful that technology can partially solve some of this problem. Fetal adoption comes to mind…you might not be allowed to kill the baby, but you could have it removed from your uterus and placed somewhere else, if doing so would not kill it.

And of course, no one is obligated to risk their lives to save the life of another person. So, medical procedures to save the life of the mother can take place, even if they would also kill they baby. Chemotherapy would be one example.

Back to sex. I really believe that people would be happier if they took a good look at the person they are about to have sex with and thought to themselves, “What would be the result if a pregnancy resulted from this? What kind of parent would this person be? What would be the impact on my life if this happened?” I just wish people would THINK a bit before they made their choices.

12

Rachelle: *That would be considered a spontaneous abortion. My SIL miscarried when she was 8 weeks pregnant and for insurance purposes it was coded as a spontaneous abortion even though she miscarried naturally. *

Um, I think you have your terminology a little mixed up here. “Spontaneous abortion” is natural miscarriage: it has nothing to do with attempts at surgical or other types of medically-performed abortion, nor is it any kind of “code” for “insurance purposes”. The correct medical term for the naturally occurring termination of a pregnancy (i.e., a miscarriage) is “spontaneous abortion.” You can read the medical definition here.

*If you have sex, that’s your choice. You’re choosing to have sex even though you know that there’s always the risk of pregnancy, regardless of whether or not you use birth control. I think people should think about the consequences of their actions before doing stuff. *

You realize, of course, that that ignores the many women who become pregnant although they don’t choose to have sex, e.g., as a result of rape. You can’t resolve the issue of their reproductive rights just by moralizing about their sexual choices.

13

The term “spontaneous abortion” is the medical description (and thus insurance coding) for what is often referred to as a “miscarriage” by the public…I don’t see how that is different from what Rachelle posted.

She was answering Miss Pepper’s post about a hypothetical situation where a woman is in the middle of a “miscarriage” (Miss Pepper’s words) when she visits her doc to get an abortion. Rachelle referred to that as a “spontaneous abortion”.

In the hypothetical, the miscarriage was essentially already happening…the pregnancy had already “naturally” terminated. I don’t see how this could then be viewed as a surgical abortion, regardless of what intentions the patient had upon making a dr’s appointment.

14

xerxes:

That would be of more relevance to you than to me.

Ditto.

Gee, you must be one of those pro-lifers or something :slight_smile:

Well, I don’t agree with you, but I shouldn’t be hijacking the thread. The OP asked for you pro-life folks to explain and elaborate on your belief-systems, not for other pro-choice people to chime in with ours. I started out replying to beagledave, (who was replying to the OP’s stipulation that zygotes and embryos are alive by saying that other pro-choice people might not make that stipulation), by noting that I, too, would grant that stipulation.

All of which is another way of saying “Please don’t construct a ‘straw man’ pro-choice position that depends on claiming that a fetus (/embryo/zygote/product of conception) is NOT ALIVE or NOT HUMAN, and then argue against that straw man. You’ve got pro-choicers (not all of us, but certainly two of us) who have already said we’re pro-choice regardless of the outcome of the ‘is it alive and human’ debate.”

15
16

Why is it that when we talk of “life” and “killing” it’s taken for granted that we’re excluding those forms of life the we routinely kill? They’re certainly “innocent”. A pro-lifer may hastily add, “Oh, we’re talking about innocent ‘human’ life”, but that’s just a label for a particular species. (Words like “baby” and “child” anre similarly misleading. I’s like a definition of “human” which:

  1. Encompasses the pricelessness that the term ususlly implies.
  2. Includes the fetus.
  3. Is non-religious.

Pointing to a “beating heart” won’t cut it. Neither will pointing out the fetus’ DNA code is unique. The value of a creature is in the physical manifestation of these blueprints (particularly the brain development), not in the blueprints themselves or their “potential”.

And if you beg to differ, remember we mussn’t lose sight of the context in which this debate is occuring. When a young woman or teenage girl becomes pregnant accidentally, her world is turned upside down. The availablity of abortion is a priceless opportunity for a second chance. Plus, the world is facing a population crisis and high birth rates are a major cause of global poverty. Too many children and LIFE on this planet is threatened (I’m not advocating aggressive promotion of abortion, just keep it available).

Any arguments for taking away the right to abortion have to be strong enough to overwhelm these considerations hands down. Arguments based on flimsy philosphical reasoning fall short.

17

Yeah! And all those anti-abortion people out there are just jealous that they’re not the ones getting laid!
<ducking and running>

18

If you wish to discuss vegetarianism, hunting or insect eradication…you should really start a new thread for that.

But the definition of what makes an organism “human” (as opposed to bovine or canine…)IS it’s genetic makeup. Deciding the “value” of a creature based on brain development is more of a philosophical argument about personhood

19

Says you :wink:

20

That is called a dilation and curretage or a suction curretage to remove the products of conception. This enables the uterus to involute and clamp down on the blood vessels that would have been feeding the placenta. If you were spontaneously miscarrying, your os would be dilated and loss of the fetus would be inevitable. Miscarriage and abortion are the same thing, medically, but people don’t like the words.