# What really motivates people with extremely strong opinions on abortion **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 23, 2011, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308 "2011-02-23T02:12:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/81 "2011-02-23T16:17:35Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > If life begins at conception, how come anti-aborts are not protesting at in-vitro clinics? I don’t understand, why should they? ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/82 "2011-02-23T16:20:12Z")
If life begins at conception, unfreezing frozen embryos is as much murder as abortion is, and should be illegal. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/83 "2011-02-23T16:21:31Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > And many pro-lifers also protested the war, so really that tells you nothing. It tells me many so-called pro-lifers who claim to hold life precious are liars. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/84 "2011-02-23T16:23:54Z")
I read an interesting discussion on why some pro lifers were against homosexuality (apart from the whole Christian thing). There was considerable support for the idea that gays and pro choicers both believed it was okay to have “sex without consequences.” That “attitude,” they thought, was one of the main reasons we were having so many abortions. Thus, they didn’t like birth control either. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/85 "2011-02-23T16:33:36Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > If life begins at conception, unfreezing frozen embryos is as much murder as abortion is, and should be illegal. Unfreezing them to destroy them? Or implant them? I would think they would be overjoyed when embryos are implanted. If you mean why don’t pro-lifers protest the destruction of frozen embryos, they do. > [@The\_Tooth](#): > > It tells me many so-called pro-lifers who claim to hold life precious are liars. Well many are in favor of the death penalty to, and I don’t understand why that is, either. I don’t think they’re lying, though, they honestly see a distinction. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/86 "2011-02-23T16:34:53Z")
> [@VarlosZ](#): > > \ > > – The simplest explanation is competing interests, as suggested above. Abortion is ethically distasteful, but forcing a rape victim to carry her pregnancy to term is even more distasteful. > > \ Okay, then, if it’s not about slut shaming and controlling women’s sexuality, then how is forcing someone who had consensual sex (but whose birth control failed) to carry her pregnancy to term _less_ distateful? Because I gotta tell ya. If I’ve carefully taken steps to prevent pregnancy and it happens anyway,\* I would rather kill myself \*than be forced to carry a pregnancy to term. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/87 "2011-02-23T16:45:55Z")
This is a really interesting OP. I think it is a proxy issue, but for both sides. For many conservatives, it is about sex and the ability to enjoy sex before marriage without the consequences. This is why they oppose abortion for very early stages of pregnancy and even oppose PlanB. Being against sex eduction (other than abstinence) and opposing birth control is part of that, even though studies show that kids with sex education delay the start of sexual activity. On the other side, access to abortion is a proxy for womens’ rights. You have people with a straight face say that aborting a late stage, viable fetus is just fine because it is just about the woman carrying the baby. In reality, there are very, very few late stage abortions of viable fetuses for reasons other than the health of the mother and just about anyone would be morally outraged, and physically sickened, by an abortion of a healthy late third trimester fetus by a healthy mother. The instinctive, centrist position makes the most sense to me. Very early abortions are no ones’ interest except the mother and doctor. Later term abortions clearly involve two lives, and the state has a compelling interest to make sure that viable, healthy fetuses are not being aborted for trivial reasons or treated like birth control. Some where in the middle there is a grey area. The Bible talks about “the quickening” where you can feel a fetus moving as the point at which they have a soul. Not that I am at all religious, but that seems like the instinctive point at which the state has some interest. To me the logical middle ground is 1st trimester no state involvement or restrictions, 2nd trimester minimal restrictions, and during the third trimester there should be a compelling reason to abort. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/88 "2011-02-23T16:48:26Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > In reality, there are very, very few late stage abortions of viable fetuses for reasons other than the health of the mother and just about anyone would be morally outraged, and physically sickened, by an abortion of a healthy late third trimester fetus by a healthy mother. I am morally outraged and physically sickened by a Klan march. Doesn’t mean I seek to criminalize it. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/89 "2011-02-23T16:49:25Z")
But…but…but don’y you know that eight week old [preborn babies]([http://www.abortionfacts.com/online\_books/love\_them\_both/why\_cant\_we\_love\_them\_both\_14.asp#Medical](http://www.abortionfacts.com/online_books/love_them_both/why_cant_we_love_them_both_14.asp#Medical) Example of Pain) feel pain? NOTE: While that site calls itself “abortion facts,” it’s so slanted you practically have to tilt to your head to the right just to read it. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/90 "2011-02-23T16:53:18Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > I… what about the fetus? Continued health of the fetus doesn’t seem to be referred to, and that could well fulfil the second point of providing medical necessity. Your objection is a bit incoherent. The quote says that the procedure is mostly performed on “a healthy mother and a healthy baby”. There is no medical necessity on behalf of the mother, and I would have thought it obvious that being aborted is going to have bad effects on the health of the baby being aborted. > [@](#): > > I’m slightly wary, I must admit, of cites of opinion rather than studies. Certainly we may assume that the Surgeon General and those medical professionals keep up to date on research in order to form the basis of their opinions, but i’m still wary of there being a layer of opinion between fact and my own understanding. Beyond that, your first cite is 14 years old, and your second are both 15 years old, which limits their effectiveness and calls into question the extent to which term usage is the same. Well, that’s a point, but you will find that the pro-abortion folks will not be able to produce any cites at all to back up false claims like this one - > [@](#): > > those only happen for medically necessary reasons (usually when the fetus is already dead or dying). Even pro-abortion types know this is not true. Time did a [Q&A](http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/05/qa-the-last-remaining-doctor-who-performs-late-term-abortions-speaks-out/) with a doctor who does late-term abortions (after Tiller was killed), and admitted (albeit carefully phrased to minimize what was said) that he did not attempt to exercise his medical judgment to determine the reason why a woman sought a late-term abortion from him. Still and all, I would welcome any statistics from an unbiased cite on what percentage of late-term abortions, including the PBA method, is actually done on dead or dying fetuses. **Diogenes** made the claim, but his record of backing up such is not good. What I think happened was, and the reason the cites I provided are fourteen or fifteen years old, is that pro-abortionists found out why women seek late-term abortions and realized that they had better lie about it, because the general public is not going to accept hacking holes in the back of babies’ heads just because the mother never got around to arranging an abortion until she was twenty months along. > [@](#): > > In 1987, the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), an affiliate of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), collected questionnaires from 1,900 women who were at abortion clinics procuring abortions. Of the 1,900, “420 had been pregnant for 16 or more weeks.” These 420 women were asked to choose among a menu of reasons why they had not obtained the abortions earlier in their pregnancies. Only two percent (2%) said “a fetal problem was diagnosed late in pregnancy,” compared to 71% who responded “did not recognize that she was pregnant or misjudged gestation,” 48% who said “found it hard to make arrangements,” and 33% who said “was afraid to tell her partner or parents.” The report did not indicate that any of the 420 late abortions were performed because of maternal health problems. [“Why Do Women Have Abortions?,” Family Planning Perspectives, July/August 1988.] [Cite.](http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/pbafact9.html) > [@](#): > > There are several reasons why a women chooses to have a late term abortion. Apart from the serious or life threatening health risks, other reasons include: > > ``` > * Being afraid or unwilling to tell partner about pregnancy > * Being afraid or unable to tell parents, relatives or friends about pregnancy. > * Miscalculated the stage of her pregnancy > * Spent a long time deciding whether to have an abortion > * Health problem with the foetus diagnosed at a late stage in her pregnancy. > * Unsure about how to arrange to have an abortion > * Not realising the importance of knowing what stage she is at during her pregnancy. > * Felt under pressure not to undergo an abortion > * Changed her mind at a late stage > > ``` > > The health risks to either the mother or baby are usually the reasons for a late term abortion. [Cite.](http://www.medic8.com/healthguide/abortion/later-term-abortion.html) Notice that the cite lists “changing her mind” as a health risk. Of course, if that is your definition of “seeking a late-term abortion because the fetus is dead or dying” I doubt the discussion is going anywhere. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/91 "2011-02-23T16:56:37Z")
> [@villa](#): > > I am morally outraged and physically sickened by a Klan march. Doesn’t mean I seek to criminalize it. Most laws in the country seek to balance competing rights. Your rights are not trampled when the Klan marches. A new born baby has rights sufficient that you cannot kill it on a whim. It is hard to see a significant difference between a newborn (as a sentient being with a right to life) and a baby that is 1 minute away from birth. March back in time through the pregnancy and that measure changes with the mother’s rights being balanced against a thing with less and less sentience. Granted where the line is drawn is somewhat arbitrary but eventually you get to a point where the mother’s rights prevail. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/92 "2011-02-23T16:59:12Z")
The flaw in that, of course, is that many gay couples are trying very hard to get the “consequences”, to marry, form families, and raise children, but the homophobes want to deny them that, too. Quoth **Annie X-Mas** : > [@](#): > > If life begins at conception, how come anti-aborts are not protesting at in-vitro clinics? Huh, I thought it was common knowledge that they (at least some of them) do. Of course, it’s also not an either-or proposition that “personhood begins at birth” or “personhood begins at conception”. There are some folks who believe that personhood begins at some point after conception but before birth, and such folks would generally not have any moral objection to IVF or the morning-after pill, but would have problem with late-term abortions. EDIT: The first part of my post was in response to post 84. There was obviously some activity in the thread since I loaded it. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/93 "2011-02-23T17:05:59Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Basic misogyny (and religiously based sexual shaming of women) _is_ the simplest explanation. I’ve seen these people in action (one one occasion calling a rape victim I was escorting to a clinic a “slut”), and they didn’t appear coming from a place of compassion but pure anger and hatred. It also seems to me that the most militant anti-abortion people, generally speaking, are also vehemently opposed to giving any kind of assistance to these babies _after_ they’re born, and unwed mothers seeking help are villified without mercy as “welfare queens.” If they really care about babies, they don’t do a very good job of showing it. All we see is hostility and occasional violence. I was in hospital waiting to be taken in for the removal of a dead fetus that was not so slowly poisoning me to death. The fuckwads in charge let bible pounding nasty ass fuckwad prolifers in to lecture at me about the evils of abortion. As near as my OB/GYN could figure they saw what I was on the surgical schedule for, but had no idea _why_ but since it qualified as an abortion, they put me on the shit list of slut whores since I was also listed as single. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/94 "2011-02-23T17:06:06Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Most laws in the country seek to balance competing rights. > > Your rights are not trampled when the Klan marches. And nowhere did I deny this. The sole point of the post was that finding something morally outrageous and physically sickening (such as Justin Bieber, for example) does not provide information sufficient to ban it. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/95 "2011-02-23T17:08:03Z")
I don’t think the anti-women’s-sexuality bias is anything people are conscious of or sit around plotting. Nobody is hanging out in back rooms saying “How can we make life worse for the sluts?” I think you have to look long and deep at our culture to understand where this all comes from. For thousands of years, we’ve lived in a basically agricultural society heavily influenced by English common law. Part of this meant that land inheritance was an extremely serious issue, and men in particular had strong motivations to control female sexuality in order to ensure that land is passed down to their genetic offspring. We followed the same methods of controlling female sexuality (expecting virginity and marrying young- especially for nobility, limiting women’s movements, harsh punishments for female adulterers, etc.) that you find in farming societies around the world, although in some situations (like urban areas) it becomes less important and the controls relaxed. Despite the controls, husbands and wives both contributed a lot to the farm and acted for the most part as a single economic unit. Anyway, along came industrialization, and the comparatively cooperative nature of farm work was replaced by the much more gender-segregated world of factories. Basically, the division of labor worked out so that women for the most part became dependent on men. Since you can farm with a baby on your back, but you can’t go to a factory with one, married women stopped contributing directly towards food production and income generation and became entirely devoted to raising kids. A woman relied entirely on men for food and shelter. What did a woman have to trade in return? Of course, her sexuality. The “trading income for sex” model of gender relations was born, and served us well between the victorian era up to the 1950s. A key part of this was that married women had to keep the “value” of their sexuality high. if men can easily get sex elsewhere, married women will lose their currency. That’s why traditionally it’s women who are the most eager to call out “sluts” and fight against prostitution- they need to create scarcity and they do that with social controls. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free. Then, women started working. They no longer had to use sexuality as currency to get stuff out of men- they could just buy their own stuff directly. Added to this was the pill and the legalization of abortion, which finally reliably separated sex from reproduction. Suddenly, everything changed. Sex lost it’s scarcity value, and both men and women started to have sex for fun. Marrying late or even skipping marriage all together became acceptable. Gay rights found a place in society. Women started having babies without husbands. Everything changed. Metaphors about “buying” sexual access to wives no longer made sense. These changes left a lot of women in a bad spot, though. Women raised to believe that control of their sexuality was their main currency in the world were suddenly outdated. And this isn’t just older women- it also includes women from cultures, areas, religions and families that are resistant to change for whatever reason. The thing they had that was once so rare, that they guarded so carefully, now was everywhere for free. The fear and insecurity brought on by this manifested itself as a desperate scramble to assert their value. The old attempts to induce fear or disgust at “loose women” stopped working. So they got smarter and started working with political movements. Anti-prostitutions and anti-pornography efforts became about women’s rights. Chastity became about preventing disease and teen pregnancy. Marriage became about teen moms and welfare queens. Obviously not everyone working for these causes is about controlling female sexuality, but you can always find organizations and individuals with a strong undercurrent of just that. Which brings us to abortion, which has been one of the most successful co-option. Subtly underneath he whole thing is a desire to get back to a time where sex _meant_ something. When sex created families (as in units where women traded exclusive sexual for financial gain). When people had a healthy fear of having sex lightly, keeping the value high. “Family values” are often economic. Anyway, on top of this is the face of the abortion fight- one that is full of anger and disgust. It’s the old tactics showing through. Not every pro-lifer is influenced by this. And few are making fully conscious decisions along these lines. But I do believe these are the wider social forces that are underlying the “feelings” that people often can’t quite fully articulate. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/96 "2011-02-23T17:10:03Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Your objection is a bit incoherent. The quote says that the procedure is mostly performed on “a healthy mother and a healthy baby”. There is no medical necessity on behalf of the mother, and I would have thought it obvious that being aborted is going to have bad effects on the health of the baby being aborted. > > Well, that’s a point, but you will find that the pro-abortion folks will not be able to produce any cites at all to back up false claims like this one - Even pro-abortion types know this is not true. > > Time did a [Q&A](http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/05/qa-the-last-remaining-doctor-who-performs-late-term-abortions-speaks-out/) with a doctor who does late-term abortions (after Tiller was killed), and admitted (albeit carefully phrased to minimize what was said) that he did not attempt to exercise his medical judgment to determine the reason why a woman sought a late-term abortion from him. > > Still and all, I would welcome any statistics from an unbiased cite on what percentage of late-term abortions, including the PBA method, is actually done on dead or dying fetuses. **Diogenes** made the claim, but his record of backing up such is not good. > > What I think happened was, and the reason the cites I provided are fourteen or fifteen years old, is that pro-abortionists found out why women seek late-term abortions and realized that they had better lie about it, because the general public is not going to accept hacking holes in the back of babies’ heads just because the mother never got around to arranging an abortion until she was twenty months along. > [Cite.](http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/pbafact9.html) > [Cite.](http://www.medic8.com/healthguide/abortion/later-term-abortion.html) > Notice that the cite lists “changing her mind” as a health risk. Of course, if that is your definition of “seeking a late-term abortion because the fetus is dead or dying” I doubt the discussion is going anywhere. > > Regards, > Shodan “Late term abortion” is a medically meaningless phrase that anti-abortion groups apply to anything past the first trimester. It does not mean 3rd trimester. I reat it does _not mean 3rd trimester_. Third trimester abortions only happen extremely rarely and for medically necessary reasons. Currently there are only a couple of clinics in the US that even perform them. Do not conflate third term abortions with second term abortions, because that’s what you’re doing and that kind of ignorant, uninformed confusion is exactly the intention of anti-abortion groups in their invention of the phrase “late-term abortions.” They are trying to get stupid people to think they’re talking about third trimester abortions. Don’t fall for it. There is also no such thing as a “partial-birth abortion.” Just FYI. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/97 "2011-02-23T17:14:00Z")
> [@Naxos](#): > > If I may comment on the overly dramatic use of “prisoner”… > > Our bodies do many things we’re not aware of, but getting pregnant is definitely not one of them. A prisoner has no choice to prevent their incarceration. Well, using birth control is evil, and an abortion is evil, and you get raped and made pregnant so even if you were a chaste virgin you are now prisoner of someone else’s moral system. Or you are married, so no need for birth control. He dumps you for a new model, and you are pregnant. You are still a prisoner of someone else’s moral system. Anybody telling me I cant have sex married or single, and refuses to allow me a prescription for birth control, and closes down all the planned parenthood offices, and if i end up pregnant I can not have an abortion is forcing me to remain pregnant. How many ways would you like me to explain that women are being held hostage if they have no legal recourse for OPTIONS. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/98 "2011-02-23T17:14:42Z")
> [@](#): > > [@Shodan](#): > > Notice that the cite lists “changing her mind” as a health risk. No it doesn’t. [QUOTE=YOUR CITE] There are several reasons why a women chooses to have a late term abortion. **Apart from the serious or life threatening health risks** , other reasons include: … - Changed her mind at a late stage The health risks to either the mother or baby are usually the reasons for a late term abortion. [/QUOTE] (My emphasis) **APART FROM** indicates that these are reasons other than health risk that a woman choses to abort in the UK between 20 and 24 weeks. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/99 "2011-02-23T17:19:47Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > I read an interesting discussion on why some pro lifers were against homosexuality (apart from the whole Christian thing). There was considerable support for the idea that gays and pro choicers both believed it was okay to have “sex without consequences.” That “attitude,” they thought, was one of the main reasons we were having so many abortions. Thus, they didn’t like birth control either. The Times Magazine had an article a while back on how the “pro-lifers” were working on their next project, which is spreading lies about how birth control was dangerous and so should be limited or banned. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308/100 "2011-02-23T17:31:23Z")
> [@Kearsen](#): > > There was a whole thread on just a single piece of the above post. > Sex without consequences is fine for the Goose but in this case, it isn’t fine for the Gander. This inequality is bullshit. > > in comes the many folks saying that a man can’t have a baby HINT: he also can’t decide not to > > then why tie child support to a percentage FYI a goose is female, a gander is male. As a generic they are geese/goose. But very specifically gander is a male goose. So, sex is fine for the gander, but not the goose. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-really-motivates-people-with-extremely-strong-opinions-on-abortion/572308.md?page=6)