# There is no Pro-abortion movement **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 14, 2006, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372 "2006-11-14T13:08:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Autumn\_Almanac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d26b3c/32.png) [@Autumn\_Almanac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autumn_Almanac)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/61 "2006-11-15T16:40:52Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax] If you do not believe in abortion, then I think you shouldn’t have one. The logical step I can’t follow is "I do not believe in abortion. I am so right about it, that you should not have one either. I have the moral and ethical power to decide for you. Overstepping a little .dont you think. [/QUOTE] Individuals grant society as a whole the “moral and ethical power” to prohibit all kinds of things, from murder to stealing to not paying taxes to drinking alcohol before a certain arbitrary age. You obviously don’t think that abortion belongs on that list, but is it really such an unfathomable logical leap that some people do? ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/62 "2006-11-15T17:05:26Z")
[QUOTE=Autumn Almanac] Individuals grant society as a whole the “moral and ethical power” to prohibit all kinds of things, from murder to stealing to not paying taxes to drinking alcohol before a certain arbitrary age. [/quote] Such things are prohibited not because they are immoral, but because our consensus is that it improves our society as a whole. I really don’t understand how banning abortion would make this country (or any society) a better place to live. Restrictions on recreational drugs, gambling, etc. _are_ sometimes based on moral grounds, but I don’t agree with those restrictions either. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/63 "2006-11-15T17:21:20Z")
[QUOTE=Malacandra] _Eso si que es_. [/QUOTE] Sorry, I don’t speak Spanish! Translation, please? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/64 "2006-11-15T17:35:21Z")
[QUOTE=Autumn Almanac] Individuals grant society as a whole the “moral and ethical power” to prohibit all kinds of things, from murder to stealing to not paying taxes to drinking alcohol before a certain arbitrary age. You obviously don’t think that abortion belongs on that list, but is it really such an unfathomable logical leap that some people do? [/QUOTE] It’s not unfathomable, but it isn’t a clear line of logic either. The things you list are things that you do to someone else - killing someone else, stealing from someone else (in the case of taxes, from the government). In the case of abortion, it’s choosing what \*you \* can do to yourself, and doesn’t involve any other people. Of course, most pro-lifers would say that there is another person involved, but if you look at it from the embryo-isn’t-a-person side, it’s quite a big jump to prohibit you from choosing what to do with your own body and 18 years of your life. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/65 "2006-11-15T18:17:53Z")
People die during child birth. You are not deciding only for a child. You are deciding a possible life and death potential for the mother. Complications arise. Our society has determined that abortion is legal. If you believe society has this right ,then on what do you base your objections and protests. ? Is your morality more important than the law now.? Logical convenience.I will be lawbiding when it suits me. I will subject my logic and morals on you. Something is out of step. Then the life an unwanted and unaffordable child. What price do they pay? They are members of the future criminals club. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/66 "2006-11-15T18:28:14Z")
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena] Sorry, I don’t speak Spanish! Translation, please? 🙂 [/QUOTE] I think I got it right (paging **Nava**!) - “That’s exactly it”. Easy to remember because it phonetically spells _socks_ in English. 😃 ---
**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:** [November 15, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/67 "2006-11-15T18:30:20Z")
[QUOTE=Jackmannii] John, your confusion should have been cleared up by now. Either you know what I was saying and are just being argumentative to no purpose, or you’re hopelessly obtuse. [/QUOTE] False dichotomy. Did you ever consider that what you wrote was not an accurate representation of what you claim you meant? My interpretation of your post was reasonable, and if you want to modify that post now, that’s fine with me. But do consider that you could have been much more clear about what you meant in that post. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/68 "2006-11-15T18:31:27Z")
[QUOTE=Malacandra] I think I got it right (paging **Nava**!) - “That’s exactly it”. Easy to remember because it phonetically spells _socks_ in English. 😃 [/QUOTE] Thanks! Now that you mention it, I think there IS a joke in Spanish that uses this phrase, using it as a pun on spelling “socks,” but I would never get the joke, because I don’t know Spanish well enough to even know the direct translation, much less understand a pun! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/69 "2006-11-15T21:12:29Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] False dichotomy. Did you ever consider that what you wrote was not an accurate representation of what you claim you meant? [/QUOTE] And here we see a splendid example of a typical **John Mace** thread hijack, in which he ignores specific points relevant to the actual matter being debated, and instead goes on a Junior Mod Rampage over someone’s allegedly faulty presentation. This shtick in which you are unable or unwilling to refute an argument and instead attack the way it’s delivered, is getting very tiresome **John**. If you’re not up to honest participation in a discussion, play your games elsewhere. ---
**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:** [November 15, 2006, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/70 "2006-11-15T21:23:09Z")
[QUOTE=Jackmannii] And here we see a splendid example of a typical **John Mace** thread hijack, in which he ignores specific points relevant to the actual matter being debated, and instead goes on a Junior Mod Rampage over someone’s allegedly faulty presentation. [/quote] Junior Modding? You’re nuts. I read your post the way you wrote it, not the way you thought you wrote it. Don’t blame me if you weren’t clear. > [@](#): > > This shtick in which you are unable or unwilling to refute an argument and instead attack the way it’s delivered, is getting very tiresome **John**. If you’re not up to honest participation in a discussion, play your games elsewhere. Uhm… that is junior modding, pal. I’ll post where I want when I want. If it bothers you, tough shit. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2006, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/71 "2006-11-15T22:31:12Z")
Since you get a charge from dishing it out but evidently can’t take it, **John** , stick to the point the next time. Or continue being a tiresome ass when you don’t get your way. Your choice. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/72 "2006-11-16T18:41:00Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax] If you do not believe in abortion, then I think you shouldn’t have one. The logical step I can’t follow is "I do not believe in abortion. I am so right about it, that you should not have one either. I have the moral and ethical power to decide for you. Overstepping a little .dont you think. Who put your fine ethical and moral values in charge of my life? Bringing an unwanted child into the world has always been a problem for the child and family. If they can’t afford a child and feel they are unable to raise it.,how does your morality give you the right to make that decision for them. [/QUOTE] But the extension of that would be, they could kill their newborn if they can’t afford it and are unable to raise it. And yet, murder is something we do proscribe for everyone, not just ourselves, because it violates someone else’s rights. So the difference is that the fetus is considered a parasite on the mother during pregnancy, only, since it could be given up after birth. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2006, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/73 "2006-11-16T19:07:59Z")
You equate abortion and murder. Not a legal leg to stand on. You ignore huge debate about when life begins and when it has the rights of a adult person. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/74 "2006-11-17T06:05:17Z")
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas] Those “pro-abortion” people still aren’t pushing abortions on women who don’t want them. If a woman choses to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth to a rapist’s or a severely deformed child, that is her choice. Those people’s flip side are the people who think no one should ever have an abortion, even if she is carrying a fetus that could endanger her own health and would not survive after birh. Even so, you conceived it, you deliver it. [/QUOTE] There is almost noone (including the Catholic Church) that believes that a woman must carry a pregnancy to term if it would kill her. While the Catholic church views ALL abortion as sinful (they also consider masturbation and birth control sinful), it has flip flopped on when abortion equaled murder. There was a time when abortions before the “quickening” were not murder, it is only in the last hundred years (and finally in 1983), when canonical law reflected abortion as murder even if performed the day after conception. The exact time of “ensoulment” was a moving target for centuries. Today the Catholic church has a total moratorium on abortions but it was not always so, just like priests were not always celibate and there is good reason to believe that neither rule was based on divine inspiration. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/75 "2006-11-17T06:10:18Z")
[QUOTE=Mighty\_Girl] And by the way, I hate the “pro-life” label too. What are we then, “pro-death”? Even when that means that we support a woman’s right to survive an unwanted (or gone bad) pregnancy? I guess it is only pro-embryo’s-life. Grown women need not apply. [/QUOTE] Are you saying that if the pro-life movement said “OK, pregnancies that endangers the mother’s health can be aborted” then you would be ready to sign on? Is there ANY circumstance when you would restrict the right to an abortion? ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/76 "2006-11-17T12:47:15Z")
[QUOTE=col\_10022] There is almost noone (including the Catholic Church) that believes that a woman must carry a pregnancy to term if it would kill her. [/QUOTE] Really?! Isn’t \*\*Cardinal \*\*Rodriquez speaking as a, er, cardinal then? And no, I will not sign on on the movement even if they made that concesion. I don’t believe an embryo is a human. It is alive alright, but not human. ---
**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/77 "2006-11-17T12:54:57Z")
[QUOTE=col\_10022] There is almost noone (including the Catholic Church) that believes that a woman must carry a pregnancy to term if it would kill her. While the Catholic church views ALL abortion as sinful (they also consider masturbation and birth control sinful), it has flip flopped on when abortion equaled murder. There was a time when abortions before the “quickening” were not murder, it is only in the last hundred years (and finally in 1983), when canonical law reflected abortion as murder even if performed the day after conception. The exact time of “ensoulment” was a moving target for centuries. Today the Catholic church has a total moratorium on abortions but it was not always so, just like priests were not always celibate and there is good reason to believe that neither rule was based on divine inspiration. [/QUOTE] So - does it or doesn’t it? In Nicaragua and El Salvador, as well as the Dominican Republic, the Church has ensured that the legal prohibition is absolute. Even in cases of ectopic pregnancy where the mother’s life is threatened AND the foetus has no chance of coming to term, until the foetus is dead, which sometimes may be too late for the mother. Even in the case of a nine year old girl who was raped. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/78 "2006-11-17T13:10:08Z")
[QUOTE=Martha] So - does it or doesn’t it? In Nicaragua and El Salvador, as well as the Dominican Republic, the Church has ensured that the legal prohibition is absolute. Even in cases of ectopic pregnancy where the mother’s life is threatened AND the foetus has no chance of coming to term, until the foetus is dead, which sometimes may be too late for the mother. Even in the case of a nine year old girl who was raped. [/QUOTE] That law is not a consequence of [RCC’s teachings](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01046b.htm), properly understood: > [@](#): > > Ethics, then, and the Church agree in teaching that no action is lawful which directly destroys fetal life. It is also clear that extracting the living fetus before it is viable, is destroying its life as directly as it would be killing a grown man directly to plunge him into a medium in which he cannot live, and hold him there till he expires. > > However, if medical treatment or surgical operation, necessary to save a mother’s life, is applied to her organism (though the child’s death would, or at least might, follow as a regretted but unavoidable consequence), it should not be maintained that the fetal life is thereby directly attacked. The RCC does not teach that the mother’s life is lesser than the child’s, or that no medical act that threatens the fetus to save the mother is permitted, much as it might be convenient to attack that position. Nicaragua’s law overreaches. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/79 "2006-11-17T13:13:44Z")
[QUOTE=Mighty\_Girl] Really?! Isn’t \*\*Cardinal \*\*Rodriquez speaking as a, er, cardinal then? And no, I will not sign on on the movement even if they made that concesion. I don’t believe an embryo is a human. It is alive alright, but not human. [/QUOTE] Not human? What species do you assign him to? ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372/80 "2006-11-17T13:17:56Z")
[QUOTE=Stratocaster] Not human? What species do you assign him to? [/QUOTE] OK. Biologically? Human. If it makes my position clearer I’ll call it “not a person”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-pro-abortion-movement/380372.md?page=5)