# What is the point of abolishing abortion? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 30, 2024, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471 "2024-08-30T16:00:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/341 "2024-09-07T02:27:43Z")
> [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](#): > > well, to start, one is a forced action while the other is prevention of action. It’s illegal for you to rob someone, but you don’t have an obligation to stop a criminal from stealing a stranger’s car in the parking lot while you load your groceries in your trunk. Forcing action on its citizens requires a much higher level of justification from the State than prohibiting some action In what world is carrying a pregnancy to term not an action? It’s a whole bunch of actions; culminating in the ones called “labor”, but certainly not limited to them. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/342 "2024-09-07T02:48:55Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > In what world is carrying a pregnancy to term not an action? In a world where women in persistent vegetative states have done it. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/343 "2024-09-07T02:50:31Z")
So, nothing you do is an action unless you consciously will it? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/344 "2024-09-07T02:52:02Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > So nothing you do is an action unless you consciously will it? Uh… isn’t that the common definition of the term? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/345 "2024-09-07T02:52:42Z")
Do you know the difference between “doesn’t feel pain” and “either incapable of feeling pain or incapable of showing that pain exists”? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/346 "2024-09-07T02:53:12Z")
No. An avalanche is full of action. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/347 "2024-09-07T02:53:52Z")
Uh, no. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/348 "2024-09-07T02:57:34Z")
Nope. Sleepwalking’s an action, for instance. So is that kneejerk thing when the doctor bangs on your leg to check your reflexes. So is jumping when something startles you. And quite a lot of actions a conscious pregnant woman will take that she wouldn’t have if not pregnant are conscious actions. Even portions of labor often are. What would the sense be in telling women when to push if they weren’t doing it at least partly consciously? ---
**Author:** ![Sylvanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/349 "2024-09-07T03:01:18Z")
So now we are comparing healthy functional pregnant women to someone in a vegetative state? You do understand the difference between bodily autonomy in a normal functioning woman, and that of a woman in a vegetative state? Riiiight? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/350 "2024-09-07T03:23:59Z")
Whoops! Looks like you crapped out on that response too! [https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/09/health/vegetative-state-pregnancies/index.html#:~:text=The%20rare%20medical%20event%20raises,in%20the%20past%20two%20decades](https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/09/health/vegetative-state-pregnancies/index.html#:~:text=The%20rare%20medical%20event%20raises,in%20the%20past%20two%20decades). ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/351 "2024-09-07T03:39:15Z")
We seem to be hung up in a dispute over the difference between “action” and “volition”. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > Whoops! Looks like you crapped out on that response too! What are you talking about? The article you cited says it happens. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/352 "2024-09-07T03:43:55Z")
…and pregnancy, and libertarian, and vegetative state, and survival, and autonomy, and now we get to add viability to the list. That article show exactly what a bad and freakin’ dangerous idea it is to try to delivery a baby when the mother is in a vegetative state. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/353 "2024-09-07T03:48:02Z")
I truly don’t understand what you’re babbling about. This started with a mention of pregnancy being an “action”, despite the fact that apparently it can happen as autonomously as breathing and having bowel movements. P.S. are you sure you aren’t getting responses to the "New twist in the gun rights movement mixed up with this? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/354 "2024-09-07T03:59:40Z")
For one, but in reverse order of importance: Breathing and having bowel movements are actions. For two: there are a hell of a lot of things that most pregnant women consciously do in the course of a pregnancy. Women who don’t do them, whether because they’re unconscious or because they somehow don’t know that they’re pregnant, risk the health and the life of the fetus and of the child during and after birth, as well as adding to the risk to their own health and lives. Pregnant women are not just vacant vessels that sometimes fill up with something that they never have to do anything about (other than possibly empty themselves out.) ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/355 "2024-09-07T04:04:58Z")
I’m going to repeat that having a homeless guy camping in a corner of your kitchen, eating the food in your pantry, is a lot less of an imposition than pregnancy. But somehow, the law says that men don’t have to put up with the homeless guy. The law was right to say that women shouldn’t have to put up with pregnancy, either. Shame that got overturned. ---
**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:** [September 7, 2024, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/356 "2024-09-07T04:32:58Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > OK, this was what I was getting at. Where is all this money and political power coming from? It seems to me it’s regular people who don’t want the unborn killed. No, it’s from people and organizations that want women to suffer and die. Which is why they show zero interest in the baby they forced to be born, or whether the fetus is viable or even alive, or in the health of the woman. They aren’t throwing women who miscarry into jail because of their noble concern for the poor “unborn”. It’s about _malice._ That’s the only answer that fits the facts. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/357 "2024-09-07T04:47:31Z")
When I grew up in Northern Idaho in the 60’s and 70’s there was no sex education at all, and considering the number of females in Junior and Senior High School that “went to visit relatives and had an accident, never to be seen again” both sex education and a safe and legal place to have an abortion were damn necessary. ---
**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:** [September 7, 2024, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/358 "2024-09-07T10:44:24Z")
Yeah, my mother told me that a lot of young women her age dropped out of college for obvious bogus reasons that everyone knew meant they’d gotten pregnant. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2024, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/359 "2024-09-07T11:26:00Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No, it’s from people and organizations that want women to suffer and die. I wouldn’t go that far. But i do think it’s from people and organizations who don’t want women to have sexual autonomy. ---
**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:** [September 7, 2024, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471/360 "2024-09-07T11:33:47Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I wouldn’t go that far. I would; it’s what their actions support, and many have historically outright said so. And from a practical standpoint it really doesn’t matter, since their actions _are_ indistinguishable from people whose goals can be summed up as “hurt women”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-abolishing-abortion/1006471.md?page=19)