Well, some of us do think that. At least, I think that a fetus’s personhood is immaterial to me and my support of abortion rights. People I believe with 100% conviction to be human persons still don’t have a claim on my body parts.
But for this to be true, abortion would have to be a new thing, and it isn’t. The moral code hasn’t changed - women have always (well, thousands of years “always”, and I suspect longer than that) had abortions when they felt that having a baby was a bad idea. What has changed isn’t the moral code of women, it’s the power of women in society. We no longer have to hide our moral code. We no longer, for the moment, have to buy caustic douches in the name of “womanly freshness” in an attempt to irritate the uterine lining and expell a fetus. We no longer have to sell herbal remedies to “restore a woman’s courses” to cause abortions. We no longer have to buy turtle shells, or stuff dung in our vaginas, or use any of a myriad of dangerous, painful and deadly abortive remedies. We no longer have to hide in a closet with a coat hanger and bleed silently and alone.
Sorry, that was a little purple there. But really! Abortion isn’t new. Nothing has changed except that it’s open and legal and much, much safer than it has ever been before.
Or maybe we could even argue that the moral code has changed for those who argue that abortion is always 100% wrong. The history of the RC church shows lots of variation on exactly how bad it was considered, often depending on quickening or specific numbers of days into the pregnancy.
My point, though, is that the more open and legal and safe it is, the less and less desperate a situation has to be to justify it. I don’t want anyone dying in a closet, either. But when things are easy and common, they tend to trend more and more that way.
That doesn’t mean that anyone’s morals have changed, just that their options have changed.
Not if the reasoning for what makes an abortion is justified has changed.
Has it?
And how about the reasoning for what makes an abortion UNjustified? Because that has also changed throughout history.
I don’t think you have anything like a slamdunk case that modern women have a different attitude toward abortion than they ever did.
I see it as two separate issues. My **primary ** issue regarding abortion rights is dominion over my own body. No one is truly free without it, after all.
But I also happen to believe that a fetus is NOT a person. And the implication that I don’t *really * believe that, as though no reasonable person could, has come up often enough to annoy me. Of course, it’s implied equally if not more often that pro-lifers are disingenuous in their stated belief that a fetus IS a person, so I suppose that’s just par for the course.
And for me personally, the VERY often thrown around implication that women blithely have abortions because they don’t want to be pregnant for bikini season, *fully believing that they’re killing a person, and just not caring, * makes me nuts. That’s nothing but pure misogyny.
Gotcha. I think our views are pretty close on this one.
I don’t know if I do, either. Let’s call it a strong suspicion.
Thanks for pointing this out. The only ‘morals’ I see changing are the ones that allow women to actually talk about these things openly and put their own body and interests before those of a possible heir. How selfish. We’re even making strides towards having women who’ve had abortions feel like normal, happy human beings afterwards who start families when they feel emotionally and financially secure.
(I know GD is probably not the place, but I am having my doubts as to whether a certain poster here has ever carried a fetus to term let alone met another real human being.)
The Baby M Surrogacy Trial took place in my part of the country and I followed it avidly. One part of the initial contract was that surrogate mother Mary Beth Whitehead had to have ammiocentises and if the contract father William Stern requested she have an abortion, she had to agree or he have the legal right to abandon the child (Mrs. Whitehead would later state “If the test shoed one finger was missing, I had to abort or the Sterns would walk away”). The lower judge, who ruled in favor of the Sterns, struck that clause down, saying only Mrs. Whitehead had the right to decide whether to have an abortion or not, and that Dr. Stern would have to support the child if she didn’t.
But it hasn’t. The only reason any woman ever had for having an abortion is that she doesn’t want that pregnancy or child. The rest is all details.
In Ye Oldde Dayes, *my *abortion was always perfectly defensible, and also completely private. Nowadays, so is yours. (Not “mine” and “yours” as in WhyNot’s and Sarafeenah’s, but “mine” and “yours” in moral terms.) I will no longer cluck my tongue in public or have you dunked as a witch or hanged as a murderess while stealing off to the herbalist for a pessary myself.
Of course, that’s not entirely true of everyone. There are still those who seem to think that The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion. That’s just a shame. Thank Goddess they don’t (yet) have the political clout to make their hypocrisy into law.
Of course, that’s not entirely true of everyone. There are still those who seem to think that The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion. That’s just a shame. Thank Goddess they don’t (yet) have the political clout to make their hypocrisy into law.
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Yes, that we can be grateful for.
My point is this…in the past, how many of those abortions WEREN’T women who believed that their baby was not a person? How many did it against what they really wanted out of fear or desperation? (For that matter, how many do that now?) This is an even greater tragedy, IMO. I believe that some women do not see their babies as “people,” but I don’t believe that this is true of the majority of people who have abortions, not now, and especially not in the past. And, I don’t believe the reasons are just details…if a woman has an abortion because they are afraid of not having one, this is far more than just a detail.
Wow. If this is referring to me, then that is totally out of place, not to mention uncalled for.
In case you believe that only women who have had babies can legitimately form opinions on whether or not fetuses are people, then I offer my credentials as having had two full-term babies and two miscarriages. I hope this legitimizes me as a person who has come to a personal understanding of the meaning of human life. Gotta run, as one of those “real human beings” I gave birth to is now 3 years old, and needs some help going to the potty. Bye for now!
Ouch. Fair enough that you believe them to be killing, but you think that they themselves are accepting of that?
I’d be with you on “in the past” certainly, mainly because of the more widespread acceptance of religious thoughts. What leads you to believe that today people still believe that fetuses are people? I mean, generally, they’ll say they don’t. Pretty much all the people in this thread who’ve been pro-choice have said they don’t; how many of them are liars? Is that also a majority?
I believe I see your point now on people throwing away their morality for self-determination; it appears you actually* are* suggesting that. I would suggest to you that perhaps your own certainty of position and wishful thinking may be blinding you to the idea that others may be as certain on the other side.
If someone tells me that they don’t see a fetus as a person, then I believe them, absolutely. I just don’t know if that’s a majority viewpoint. Upon thinking about it and reading your post, I’d imagine that you are probably right, that these days it’s more likely the majority viewpoint than not. But there ARE women…and not a small number…who still have abortions because they feel they have to, not because they necessarily want to. I know some of them myself, so I know this to be true. In these cases, it’s not a matter of self-determination, it’s a matter of survival, which is very sad.
I want to add that, again, I don’t believe that individual people decide that a fetus is not a person as a matter of convenience. That is not what I’m trying to say at all. What I am trying to say is that the societal attitudes are all bound up togther…legitimizing abortion as an option leads to the general devaluing of the fetus, which leads to abortion becoming more legitimate as an option, which leads to further devaluing of the fetus. As self-determination has become more valued in our society, that is a contributing factor to this cycle. It’s a general trend that I see in society. These kinds of societal trends usually have attitudes that drive them, and they in turn drive the attitude. This is how our society has become what it is today, in contrast to the way it was 100 years ago.
Fair enough, and yes, that is very a very sad situation for pretty much everyone concerned. And looking back on it, I’m sorry I put what I said in such an assholish way.
No worries. 