# The Pro-Life Slippery Slope **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 3, 2008, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390 "2008-10-03T23:56:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/21 "2008-10-04T03:38:11Z")
> [@ArizonaTeach](#): > > And you’d be wrong. > > If this was remotely true (and it’s not, not even remotely), you would have to hand-wave away not a couple of women (and congrats for making the Nazi comparison so early in the game there), but millions. Millions who, apparantly, aren’t as wise as you about what they are really feeling deep inside. That’s far, far more insulting to women than anything you claim to have insight into. > > Nobody is buying what you are selling there. > > As for the OP, well, every slippery slope argument is, by definition, a guess. Sure, it’s _possible_. I think it’s more likely to look at the slippery slope of liberals who, bouyed by their successful campaign to eliminate smoking in private domiciles throughout the country, would then go after pregnant women who smoke. And by “more likely” I mean option A is .00005% and option B is .00006%. Are there really liberals trying to ban smoking from private, single-family dwellings? That’s news to me. I’m wondering why you think these laws aren’t likely to pass in a Pro-Lifer’s Fantasy Land. Wouldn’t they want to be consistant? It doesn’t make sense to me that we would prosecute someone for aborting a fetus but then look the other way when we see a mother going on a daily drinking binge. It’s the difference between shooting a baby in the head and throwing them out of a moving car. Why _wouldn’t_ you criminalize both? And if miscarriages are given a pass from formal documentation, what would stop women from conducting home abortions and then claiming to have miscarried? Seems to me investigation would go at the heart of anti-abortion law enforcement. Are Pro-Lifers prepared to require heart-broken mothers go down to the local police precinct, bloody bedsheets in tow? These aren’t hysterical, out-in-left field scenarios. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/22 "2008-10-04T05:29:08Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Whereas I think that they don’t seem to care (as a group) overmuch about the status of the child after being born … That’s a common claim, but I have yet to see anybody substantiate it. It makes for a convenient talking point, but it’s belied by (among other things) the hundreds of crisis pregnancy centers that help provide post-natal care for the infants and other forms of assistance for the mothers (job networking and training, support groups, material care, and so forth). ---
**Author:** ![UnwrittenNocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6de8d8/32.png) [@UnwrittenNocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UnwrittenNocturne)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/23 "2008-10-04T05:41:33Z")
> [@ArizonaTeach](#): > > ETA: the crossing state lines law, I don’t think they can do that, can they? They can’t make it illegal in Arizona to gamble in Las Vegas (or anything else they do in Las Vegas, can they…_can they_?!?!?!? :D) Well…in 2006 the Senate passed a bill making it illegal to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion (and thus avoid parental consent laws). It really isn’t a bi step from there. A day or two ago Linda Herchsman, writing in the Washington Post penned an article about this very issue. You’ll find it [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/26/AR2008092602833.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/26/AR2008092602833.html). The U.S. and many other nations prosecute their citizens for crimes committed overseas. Supporters of strong ‘states rights’ I think would push for something similar. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/24 "2008-10-04T06:24:14Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Well, it’s one thing to overturn Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade can be overturned if you get just a few more conservatives appointed to the Supreme Court. > > It’s an entirely different thing to then get abortion criminalized in most states. > > See, that won’t happen unless–get this–the criminalization of abortion is widely popular. Sure, a few southern states could ban abortion. But outside those states there simply does not exist a majority that favors banning abortion. > > If we decide to imagine that somehow the vast majority of the American population has somehow become rabidly anti-abortion then we can pretend that they will also continue to enact other measures. But it’s all make-believe because such a majority does not exist and overturning Roe v. Wade isn’t going to make it exist, rather the opposite. > > So while it’s reasonable to imagine that in a few years it might be possible for Alabama, South Carolina, Arkansas and Utah to pass laws banning abortion, it sure isn’t reasonable to imagine that criminalizing abortion in a few states is merely the first step in the sinister anti-choice agenda unless we also imagine that just about everyone in the country is anti-choice. There might be solid anti-choice majorities in some states, but not most, and there certainly aren’t solid majorities in any state in favor of the silly programs that some of you have conjured up out of your fevered imaginations. > > Unless you get solid majorities in favor of turning “A Handmaid’s Tale” into reality, then “A Handmaid’s Tale” remains fiction. Even right-wing dictatorships don’t enact wildly unpopular policies without risk. I disagree on the math regarding a majority. In elections at the Federal level, turn-out is in the 50% range; local and state elections/ballot initiatives may have turn-outs in 40% area. You only need a core of 20% motivated voters or some creative wording (in terms of ballot initiatives) to get anti-choice initiatives, District Attorneys, representatives, and various boards elected or enacted. On a different topic (with some of the same core constituents), creationism has been given equal status with evolution in classrooms (see Kansas and Texas). You had to arouse the “sleeping majority” to head off some of these initiatives AFTER they were adopted. You may currently be able to mobilize the pro-choice group but there is always more apathy until the conditions reverse. I fear the anti-choice crowd never sleeps, never stops evangelizing for their position. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/25 "2008-10-04T07:08:01Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > That’s a common claim, but I have yet to see anybody substantiate it. A perfect example is the failed amendment to the SCHIP scheme proposed by right-wing senator Wayne Allard, and supported by a lot of “pro-life” representatives, which would extend healthcare coverage to the fetus (but not to the woman carrying it). Allard and all these other Republicans regularly oppose every public health measure that goes before Congress - indeed Allard had previously opposed increasing the number of _born_ children eligible for SCHIP. Apparently to these folks, your right to healthcare ends at birth. ---
**Author:** ![BigBertha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@BigBertha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigBertha)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/26 "2008-10-04T07:29:20Z")
Your comment (in the op) would they prosecute the woman/mother? Its odd to me how they all seem to want to get the doctors for murder for performing the abortions, but the female, who chose to go to the dr. is off free because well, shes a victim or something like that, as if women aren’t culpable or capable of decisions. ---
**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/27 "2008-10-04T08:37:28Z")
Abortion WAS illegal back when all the horrible deformities from Thalidomide were occuring, yet I have never heard of any women being thrown in jail because of taking thalidomide. A slippery slope argument seems particularly spurious when we can look back at history and see that the feared consequences did not occur last time. Parents cause inadvertent harm to their children all the time - including born ones - without facing legal action. I think most of us can see a difference between **intentionally killing someone** and **causing inadvertent harm**. While I was working in the Emergency Department, it was very common to see a child brought in with acute respiratory distress because their parents’ smoking had led to an asthma flare-up for the child. In such cases, there is no question that the parents ARE harming their kid by smoking around the kid, but any reasonable person is not going to say that the parents should be treated the same as someone who commits willful child abuse or kills a child. The fact that we view a 5 year old child as having a right to not be killed doesn’t mean we have to treat anyone who engages in harmful behaviors around a 5 year old child in a draconian fashion. As another example, consider that alcohol is secreted in breast milk. Do we have to condone the actions of a teen girl who chooses to toss her newborn infant into a dumpster, for fear that treating infants as having rights will lead to jail for any woman who breastfeeds after a glass of wine with dinner (or even an alcoholic woman who breastfeeds her child)? If not, why should the situation be any different for a pregnant woman? A breastfed child has a link to its mother’s body just as a fetus in the womb does. It always amazes me to see the hateful things that some abortion advocates believe about people who oppose abortion. Is it really that hard to believe that some people sincerely dislike abortion for its own sake, not because of some sinister plot to control people? While you dream of some extremist anti-abortion agenda, a lot of us feel that abortion as currently practiced is just as extreme in the opposite direction. The abortion clinic down the road from my house offers to kill fetuses up to 24 weeks of age. Knowing that a lot of people on this board rooted for [WhyNot’s baby born at 23 weeks](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=302685), I would hope that you can see why some people find the idea of babies that age being killed horrifying and want to see an end to it - even if you have your own reasons for thinking the practice should continue to be allowed. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/28 "2008-10-04T08:55:49Z")
> [@lavenderviolet](#): > > Abortion WAS illegal back when all the horrible deformities from Thalidomide were occuring, yet I have never heard of any women being thrown in jail because of taking thalidomide. A slippery slope argument seems particularly spurious when we can look back at history and see that the feared consequences did not occur last time. I fail to see the connection; thalidomide was a failed medicine; it was not something that was legally murder, as the anti-abortionists want to make abortion. And as said earlier in the thread; they are trying to pull of the sort of garbage the OP is worried about RIGHT NOW; so what happened decades ago doesn’t matter. > [@lavenderviolet](#): > > It always amazes me to see the hateful things that some abortion advocates believe about people who oppose abortion. Is it really that hard to believe that some people sincerely dislike abortion for its own sake, not because of some sinister plot to control people? No doubt there are a few; they don’t matter. They have no power or influence. It’s the woman haters who are in control, and have the overwhelming numbers. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/29 "2008-10-04T13:36:34Z")
Is it conservatives or liberals who are behind laws such as mandatory car seats for children? Which of those groups envisions laws to prevent parents from smoking in their cars or homes if children are present? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/30 "2008-10-04T13:40:38Z")
Further… I think the OP is making the mistake that people are completely rational and consistent in their political beliefs. Let’s turn the argument around-- doesn’t a right to privacy wrt abortion also imply a right to privacy wrt prostitution? Why aren’t all those pro-choice people out there trying to legalize prostitution? Or, why aren’t all those pro-SSM folks out there trying to legalize polygamy? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/31 "2008-10-04T13:43:16Z")
> [@lavenderviolet](#): > > Abortion WAS illegal back when all the horrible deformities from Thalidomide were occuring, yet I have never heard of any women being thrown in jail because of taking thalidomide. A slippery slope argument seems particularly spurious when we can look back at history and see that the feared consequences did not occur last time. Sorry but this fails the sensical test. I’m sure if we went back into the past we’d find parents abusing their children (and wives) out in the public square with nary a consequence. Does this mean that if we decide to ban child abuse, parents need not worry about being prosecuted for beating their children in the privacy of their homes? If we decide to ban alcohol products, will cocaine users rejoice since that substance was legal during Prohibition? The slippery slope argument is a type of fallacy but that doesn’t mean we can’t find instances of law that fit the description. For instance, mandatory seat belt laws set the way for mandatory child-restraint carseats. Twenty years ago, no one would have envisioned ten-year-old children being strapped in car seats. To be provocative, emancipation of enslaved Americans created a slippery slope of other civil rights legislation. The subsequent laws did not occur overnight, but law-makers eventually realized that it didn’t make sense to ban one thing while allowing similar activities to go on with impunity. The racists who worried that freeing the nigras was going to open the flood gates (_Next thing you know they’re gonna demand we treat them like equals!_) were actually quite right. > [@](#): > > Parents cause inadvertent harm to their children all the time - including born ones - without facing legal action. I think most of us can see a difference between **intentionally killing someone** and **causing inadvertent harm**. But in the case of a pregnant binge drinker, that line is blurred tremendously. In this day and age of public service announcements and warning labels, how could a semi-literate person NOT know that alcohol damages the fetus? Even if they didn’t know, wouldn’t their ignorance constitute parental unfitness? Don’t the authorities usually step in when we see examples of unfit parenting? > [@](#): > > While I was working in the Emergency Department, it was very common to see a child brought in with acute respiratory distress because their parents’ smoking had led to an asthma flare-up for the child. In such cases, there is no question that the parents ARE harming their kid by smoking around the kid, but any reasonable person is not going to say that the parents should be treated the same as someone who commits willful child abuse or kills a child. > The fact that we view a 5 year old child as having a right to not be killed doesn’t mean we have to treat anyone who engages in harmful behaviors around a 5 year old child in a draconian fashion. But a pregnant mother is not simply “around” her unborn child. Their bodies are one. To use your analogy, it would be like forcing the five-year-old to take on a two pack a day habit. This is against the law, as it should be. Now why shouldn’t in utero infants get the same protection? > [@](#): > > As another example, consider that alcohol is secreted in breast milk. Do we have to condone the actions of a teen girl who chooses to toss her newborn infant into a dumpster, for fear that treating infants as having rights will lead to jail for any woman who breastfeeds after a glass of wine with dinner (or even an alcoholic woman who breastfeeds her child)? If not, why should the situation be any different for a pregnant woman? A breastfed child has a link to its mother’s body just as a fetus in the womb does. That’s a good point, though it could be argued that alcohol causes irreversible developmental defects on a fetus and is therefore much more serious an issue. If pregnant mothers can do whatever they want to their bodies just shy of abortion, then you will find people intentionally giving birth to malformed, unhealthy babies just by starving themselves. Or you’ll find mothers who’ll use their own prescription drugs to force miscarriages. If anti-abortion legislation doesn’t cover such behaviors, then what the hell is the point? It’s like banning slavery but allowing Jim Crow. > [@](#): > > It always amazes me to see the hateful things that some abortion advocates believe about people who oppose abortion. Is it really that hard to believe that some people sincerely dislike abortion for its own sake, not because of some sinister plot to control people? Personally I don’t think most pro-lifers are evil. I don’t think they want to dominate women’s bodies. But I don’t think many of them have really thought this thing through. Believing that abortion is murder requires a belief about the rights of the fetus. Are Pro-Lifers saying that fetuses are the same as infants? If so, then why _wouldn’t_ they be in favor of “slipper slope” legislation? Are Pro-Lifers saying that fetuses aren’t the same as infants, but should still be protected in some way? If so, then why equate abortion with murder? > [@](#): > > While you dream of some extremist anti-abortion agenda, a lot of us feel that abortion as currently practiced is just as extreme in the opposite direction. > The abortion clinic down the road from my house offers to kill fetuses up to 24 weeks of age. > Knowing that a lot of people on this board rooted for > [WhyNot’s baby born at 23 weeks](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=302685), I would hope that you can see why some people find the idea of babies that age being killed horrifying and want to see an end to it - even if you have your own reasons for thinking the practice should continue to be allowed. Would it surprise you to learn that I’m actually ambivalent about abortion? Not everyone has made up their mind about the issue. But I have to say that the Pro-Choice side is more pragmatic and more logical. It’s much easier to leave the choice up to the mother and make no statement about fetus rights and entitlements. Once you give the fetus legal status, things get very complicated. ---
**Author:** ![RyJae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@RyJae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RyJae)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/32 "2008-10-04T13:51:32Z")
I believe a woman has a choice, and if she chooses to have a baby she should be prosecuted if she causes harm to come to the baby she wanted. (drugs/alcohol) Because now her choice ends, she delivered a baby who will suffer from her choices. This whole thread seems like the slippery slope argument the religious right tried to use with gay rights leading to bestiality to pedophilia rights. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/33 "2008-10-04T13:58:59Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Further… > > I think the OP is making the mistake that people are completely rational and consistent in their political beliefs. Let’s turn the argument around-- doesn’t a right to privacy wrt abortion also imply a right to privacy wrt prostitution? Why aren’t all those pro-choice people out there trying to legalize prostitution? > > Or, why aren’t all those pro-SSM folks out there trying to legalize polygamy? I haven’t led any petition drives, but personally I have no problem with legalizing prostitution. Or polygamy for that matter. But I don’t think see so much similarity between abortion and prostitution that support of one should automatically necissitate support in the other. Yes, there’s the privacy issue, but that’s like saying illegal drugs and child pornography are similar since they both involve the black market. I think the OP really asks people to think about how anti-abortion legislation would be enforced. It’s one thing to force abortion clinics to shut down. But if that’s all the law would do, then it would be a pretty weak one IMHO. And it would be hard to respect the Pro-Life position if that’s all it wanted to do. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/34 "2008-10-04T14:13:34Z")
> [@RyJae](#): > > This whole thread seems like the slippery slope argument the religious right tried to use with gay rights leading to bestiality to pedophilia rights. Not really. If we define marriage as a union between consenting human beings, then you essentially remove the slope. That’s why all the conservative talk about adding a marriage amendent to the Constitution scares people. Once they formally define marriage as being between a “man and a woman”, then the debate is over and future arguments are shut down. How do you remove the slope to anti-abortion legislation? No one from the Pro-Life side has explained this to me. It’s easy to hand-wave and say “Those things won’t happen!” But if someone really is a Pro-Life, then shouldn’t they _want_ them to, just for consistency’s sake? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/35 "2008-10-04T15:00:26Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I haven’t led any petition drives, but personally I have no problem with legalizing prostitution. Or polygamy for that matter. Same here. But that isn’t true of most pro-choice people. That is the point I’m trying to make. Sure, there are a few on the fringe who want to ban all forms of birth control and keep women barefoot and pregnant, but that doesn’t mean that pro-lifers in general are that way. > [@](#): > > But I don’t think see so much similarity between abortion and prostitution… The similarity is that it’s about a woman’s control over her own body. ---
**Author:** ![bobthebuilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c67d28/32.png) [@bobthebuilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobthebuilder)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/36 "2008-10-04T15:07:53Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’m reasonably certain that the “pro-lifers” would try to do everything you say, and more. The anti-abortion movement is at it’s core about hostility to women; they won’t stop trying to hurt and oppress women just because of one victory. And outlawing abortion and declaring a fetus the equal of a person will give them powerful tools to inflict that harm. cite? This statement is ridiculous, do you demonize everyone who happens to disagree with you? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/37 "2008-10-04T15:10:53Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Same here. But that isn’t true of most pro-choice people. That is the point I’m trying to make. Sure, there are a few on the fringe who want to ban all forms of birth control and keep women barefoot and pregnant, but that doesn’t mean that pro-lifers in general are that way. > > The similarity is that it’s about a woman’s control over her own body. But the differences are kind of important, right? It’s not against the law for a woman to sleep with every Tom, Dick, and Harry, individually or simulatenously. So obviously prostitution laws don’t control who a woman chooses to sleep with. If there were laws restricting women’s sexual choices in consentual partners, then I would agree with you that it would be hypocritical to support them while also supporting abortion. But I don’t think prostitution legislation classifies. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/38 "2008-10-04T15:22:45Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > …However, it seems to me that by equating abortion with murder, we imply that the fetus is the same as an infant and is therefore entitled to the same rights and protections that we give infants and other dependents. > > Pro-lifers, is my understanding correct? And if it is, would you support laws that penalize mothers for being unsafe “incubators”? Why or why not? Monstro, you are still a spring chicken, but I’d be curious how you’d consider your own baby’s “rights and protections” if you are two weeks away from term and a mugger kills it by kicking you in the abdomen… The argument is not so much around whether the fetus is “the same as an infant”–the closer it gets to delivery, the closer it is to an infant–as it is around whether or not Mom gets a special dispensation to deprive the fetus of those rights. In the ProChoice construct, Mom gets to kill the fetus but nobody else does–at least, without Mom’s sanction. In the ProLife construct, nobody gets to kill the fetus. (This divide is why I think the only workable compromise is going to be that Mom has no restrictions killing the embryo and early fetus; in the middle of the pregnancy some restrictions are allowed; nobody gets to kill it near the end…) To your point of prosecuting individuals for behaviours which affect only themselves (and until it’s born, a baby is an inseparable part of the Mom’s self), the slippery slope of silly legislation has been as much engaged by liberals as conservatives. Click It or Ticket. Helmet Laws. Suicide is illegal…the list goes on and on. In this society, the impracticality of enforcing “safe incubators” is a non-starter unless we become a Muslim state or something…I don’t see that happening. Religion is losing its battle to govern the Other Guy’s life and becoming a voluntary personal quest. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/39 "2008-10-04T15:41:43Z")
> [@bobthebuilder](#): > > This statement is ridiculous, do you demonize everyone who happens to disagree with you? You’ve been around since 2005 and have to ask this? ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2008, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390/40 "2008-10-04T15:46:17Z")
> [@ruadh](#): > > A perfect example is the failed amendment to the SCHIP scheme proposed by right-wing senator Wayne Allard, and supported by a lot of “pro-life” representatives, which would extend healthcare coverage to the fetus (but not to the woman carrying it). Allard and all these other Republicans regularly oppose every public health measure that goes before Congress - indeed Allard had previously opposed increasing the number of _born_ children eligible for SCHIP. Apparently to these folks, your right to healthcare ends at birth. That’s fallacious reasoning, and I think you know it. Even if we grant your summary to be completely accurate (which I doubt), it only means that _these particular people_ opposed _these specific measures_ does not mean that they oppose offering any aid whatsoever to mothers or to fully born babies. Nor does it negate the fact that you have literally thousands of pro-life centers that do indeed offer varied assistance to mothers and their offspring. If you’re going to argue this way, you’re going to have to cite the specific reasons that they gave for opposing these measures. Did they consider the legislation to be impractical or poorly conceived? Did they feel that the healthcare coverage was inequitable? Did they perhaps feel that this was an inefficient way to provide medical assitance? I suppose we could pretend to be mindreaders and say “Well, they obviously don’t think that mothers and babies deserve any medical assistance.” We could even go further and declare “These people obviously speak for the entire pro-life community.” I daresay that fair-thinking individuals would first attempt to present the _reasons_ for rejecting this legislation before insisting on any hard and fast conclusions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pro-life-slippery-slope/466390.md?page=3)