The argument of "pro-choice" is bullsh*t.

[cosmosdan]

@Der_Trihs

Women make the decision to keep it or not long before present day viability.

Which was kinda my point.

[Satyagrahi]

Just to introduce another facet to this discussion, I’d like to point out that murder, including infanticide, is defined by the society that one lives in rather than having, in itself, an overwhelmingly obvious immorality.

To illustrate the point, I have myself killed several fully adult persons and I will swear to that in a court of law if you care to report me.

However, the court won’t be interested and won’t consider it murder when I mention the place and time: Vietnam, 1968. Like everyone else who did such things and came home, I got a Good Conduct medal.

So, if this–killing a fully human, fully adult person with hopes and dreams and a family–was good conduct, why shouldn’t killing a fetus that will ruin lives also be good conduct? It depends on what society as a whole decides is acceptable and what isn’t…and on the individual most concerned deciding what she needs to do with her body, her life.

Monkey With A Gun, I think this society has moved on and you’ve been left behind. Decide for yourself what you want to do with your own life but the majority of Americans no longer see abortion as infanticide and, therefore…

It isn’t.

[Satyagrahi]

Having made my point in the post above, let me clarify one phrase:

I feel that there is a less obvious but very strong personal immorality in killing any living thing.

If I were to take my knowledge and feelings today and somehow place them in the body of my 20-year-old self, 40-some years ago, I would have spent my Army hitch as a conscientious objector and a vegetarian.

But that’s my decision, for myself, and I won’t judge anyone else’s actions in such a situation. I certainly won’t judge any woman faced with an unhappy decision.

That’s why I’m pro-choice.

[matt]

@Satyagrahi

So, if this–killing a fully human, fully adult person with hopes and dreams and a family–was good conduct, why shouldn’t killing a fetus that will ruin lives also be good conduct? It depends on what society as a whole decides is acceptable and what isn’t…and on the individual most concerned deciding what she needs to do with her body, her life.

That is an interesting point. Not sure how I feel about it.

@Satyagrahi

Monkey With A Gun, I think this society has moved on and you’ve been left behind. Decide for yourself what you want to do with your own life but the majority of Americans no longer see abortion as infanticide and, therefore…

It isn’t.

Monkey With A Gun doesn’t see abortion as infanticide; he is pro the right to abortion. But he is pro that right because he doesn’t regard embryos and fetuses as human life, or as others in the thread have put it, people. He is simply against the argument that a person gets to choose what happens to their body whatever the circumstances.

Heart of Dorkness has argued specifically that a person should get to choose what happens to their body whatever the circumstances, giving the example of being able to cut loose a surgically attached dependant at any time even if she volunteered for that attachment, even if the attached dependant was sentient, and presumably even if waiting for nine months would mean the safe detachment of that dependant. Not sure entirely how I feel about that either - it definitely makes me uncomfortable.

[Heart_of_Dorkness]

@matt

Heart of Dorkness has argued specifically that a person should get to choose what happens to their body whatever the circumstances, giving the example of being able to cut loose a surgically attached dependant at any time even if she volunteered for that attachment, even if the attached dependant was sentient, and presumably even if waiting for nine months would mean the safe detachment of that dependant. Not sure entirely how I feel about that either - it definitely makes me uncomfortable.

Oh, it makes me freaking uncomfortable, too, believe me. Unfortunately, I can’t see a more just way to handle the issue.

I am in the midst of, by all accounts, The World’s Easiest Pregnancy Ever, but I can tell you that there’s a lot more involved in supporting a fetus than just “waiting for nine months”. Is it “worse” than death? No way (unless it actually is a life-threatening pregnancy). But neither is a bone-marrow transplant, or for that matter, a simple blood donation. And yet we have decided as a society that we cannot and will not compel someone to do those things against their will, even if it would save someone else’s life. Likewise, then, we cannot compel someone to support a fetus, even if it would save its life and/or ensure its life in the future. That’s where it ends, for me. If you blatantly refuse to let your body be used to save, support, or sustain someone else’s life, I might think you’re the worst person in the world, but I still can’t get behind forcing you by law to do so.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@DianaG

@A Monkey With a Gun

There is almost no physiological difference between a child one day before birth and one day after.

I’ve never seen anyone state that there is. The difference is that the day before birth it’s inside a woman’s body (and as such under her jurisdiction) and the next day it’s not.

“Inside my body” vs. “outside my body” is a pretty bright line. To say otherwise is bullshit.

Is having a bright line the most important component of a rule on abortion?

Pre-conception v. post conception is a pretty bright line too. To say otherwise is bullshit but very few people on this board seems to think that that sort of argument is particularly convincing.

Being a bright is simply not enough to make it right.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@AClockworkMelon

When the child is inside its mother’s womb it is literally a parasite. I think that’s a pretty big physiological difference.

So when the fetus is able to survive on its own, can we say that it is no longer a parasite by necessity?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Clu-Me-In

If it isn’t your body, then it isn’t your decision to make and you don’t have the right to prevent anyone from making the CHOICE to terminate their pregnancy, if that is what they choose to do.

So do you think a woman can terminate a pregnancy the day before its due? Not would she or should she, do think she has that right?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@DianaG

@A Monkey With a Gun

The core reason of the abortion debate, and the ONLY thing that matters is when does human life begin? “Choice” shouldn’t even factor in to it.

Now THIS is bullshit.

The core question of the abortion debate is “Who, exactly does my body belong to?” And the answer is “Me.”

Suck it up.

Here’s the thing about the left that makes it different from the right. The left might support your right to some choice because the right is so absolutist about your lack of a right to choice but if you get extreme, the left will ignore you and your giths may shift to the right of where you would be if recognized that at some point a fetus becomes a person and accrues rights.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@John_Mace

It’s not an issue of “life”, but of “personhood”. Every cell in your body is alive.

For most of us, the “pro-choice” argument isn’t about whether an 8 month old fetus can be aborted, but about what point during pregnancy should the fetus be considered a person. And most of us think that’s somewhere before or around the time of viability outside the womb.

Keep in mind that something like 90% of all abortions are performed in the first trimester. That’s not a “baby”, even if it might superficially look like a tiny version of one.

Second trimester abortions are rare, and third trimester abortions are almost unheard of, except when the health of the mother is threatened.

Now, there are some rabid pro-choices who will not give an inch on any restrictions whatsoever. But that is not the majority view.

Explain to me why pro-choicers have been so unsuccessful at driving the entire left to thyeir extreme views while the right seems to be so successful at driving their constituents to sharing the extreme views of their other constituents. blacks don’t seem to believe in gay marraige and few think that the choice to have an abortion is absolute and yet on teh right, you have pro-lifers who are against taxes and racists who don’t believe in global warming. Ideas percolate though the left as mucha s the right but the ideas seem to get diluted on the left while they get concentrated on thye right. Is this the by product of decades of minority party status?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@jtgain

@DianaG

I’ve never seen anyone state that there is. The difference is that the day before birth it’s inside a woman’s body (and as such under her jurisdiction) and the next day it’s not.

“Inside my body” vs. “outside my body” is a pretty bright line. To say otherwise is bullshit.

It would seem that under this philosophy the state should have even less power over a woman caring for her child AFTER she gives birth. After all, it is your body, right? Why should you (or your body) be forced to feed, clothe, and care for the child?

If the woman wants to smoke meth all day and neglect the child, who are you to tell this woman what to do with her body?

To be fair, they can take the baby away from her, they can’t take the fetus away from her.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@DianaG

@A Monkey With a Gun

It is not a bright line.

It’s a pretty bright line from the woman’s perspective, and you don’t get to dismiss her as unimportant to the situation.

And you don’t get to dismiss the fetus as unimportant to the situation either.

[DianaG]

Here’s the thing about the left that makes it different from the right. The left might support your right to some choice because the right is so absolutist about your lack of a right to choice but if you get extreme, the left will ignore you and your giths may shift to the right of where you would be if recognized that at some point a fetus becomes a person and accrues rights.

Not the right to occupy my body against my will. **Nobody **has that right, and the fetus isn’t so special that it gets an exception.

And you don’t get to dismiss the fetus as unimportant to the situation either.

Sure I do. The fetus is about as important as you are, inasmuch as you’re both people who aren’t me, and so it’s not up to either of you.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@John_Mace

It’s really a simple matter of it being a choice up to a certain point when the state has some interest in regulating it. Clearly that point (for almost everyone) includes the day before birth. Then we work backwards until we get to the point where the state has no interest, and it’s fully the mother’s choice.

But if you want to argue that the “pro-choice” slogan is simplistic… well, which slogan isn’t?

Its not just a slogan for some people. When they passed the (arguably unconstitutional) ban on partial birth abortions, there were people demostrating against it. Not because it might be unconstitutional (although there were some making that argument but because it infringed on the woman’s right to choose.

Granted they may have been extremists with views shared by almost noone but there are at least two posters on this thread that seem to hold pretty absolutist views on the subject. Choice>all

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@DianaG

Again with the disingenuousness.

The child is a human being either way. The person whose body it’s occupying gets to make decisions about whether it will be allowed to do so. No one else does. Not assailants, and not you.

Wait, are you saying that if a woman aborts a third trimester baby its choice but if I hit her in the gut with a bat and kill the fetus it is murder?

[DianaG]

Yes. Because it’s HER choice. Not yours. Get it?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Voyager

@A Monkey With a Gun

When does a fetus become a child? That should be the debate.

It is the debate. Some people think the fetus becomes a child immediately, some a long time later. But this is not a debate that can be resolved scientifically, since personhood is not a scientific concept in the womb. We can measure heartbeats, and brainwaves, and movements, but which combination of these makes a person is a value judgment.

Which is why pro-choice is the valid argument. If you strongly believe that a fetus does not become a person until the second trimester, say, why should the government force you not to abort earlier than that because some influential pastor convinced the legislature to set personhood at implantation? (We’ll act as if we both are women here, since as men our opinions shouldn’t count for squat, it not being our bodies.)
Certainly no one is planning to force someone who believes personhood begins at conception to have an abortion after that point. You clearly believe personhood begins at some time between conception and one day before birth - pro-choice just means the state will respect your decision on this.

First of all, not all pro-lifers are men just like not all pro-choicers are women. A woman is free to consider her zygote a person from conception if she wants, noone can stop her. Noone is going to force her to have an abortion.

The question is should we respect a woman’s decision that her fetus is not a person until it leaves her womb. Does the state have an interest in protecting that person at any point before it exits her womb?

[Ludovic]

@DianaG

Yes. Because it’s HER choice. Not yours. Get it?

That’s screwed up. Murder is illegal homicide. So if at any point you would consider killing a developing baby murder, an abortion at that same point would have to be considered a homicide. Not all homicide is illegal, mind.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Whack-a-Mole

@A Monkey With a Gun

Of course I do. I personally support abortion rights. What I can’t stand is the idiocy.

Where is all this idiocy you speak of?

I have no doubt you could dredge the bottom of the internet and find a whack-job saying abortion till the moment before birth is ok but this is nowhere near the mainstream view.

Please cite Planned Parenthood or NARAL or some other main stream organization or pundit at the center of this debate and show me their idiocy.

And it is about choice in the first trimester…the woman and the woman alone gets to choose whether or not to continue the pregnancy. As mentioned second trimester abortions are pretty rare and third trimester abortions exceptionally rare (relatively speaking) and only done when there are serious threats to the mother’s health.

The trimester demarcations are a pretty good guide actually. Viability does seem to occur around week 24. Yes, some fetuses have been delivered and survived sooner but those are truly rare cases (and only a week or two before that…I’d have to look it up).

There were about 1000 abortions performed after the 24th week last year. To put this in context, we executed 52 prisoners last year.

I’m not bothered too much by first trimenster abortions, I recognize that there is some possibility of abortions as post conception birth control but at that point I would have to support a woman’s right to choose over a zygote of an embryo even if the right is not exercised the way i would exerise that right.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Ludovic

@DianaG

Yes. Because it’s HER choice. Not yours. Get it?

That’s screwed up. Murder is illegal homicide. So if at any point you would consider killing a developing baby murder, an abortion at that same point would have to be considered a homicide.

Why? Law isn’t physics or math; consistency is not a requirement.