# Why are so many people pro-choice? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 25, 2001, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369 "2001-03-25T00:55:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![alloran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a587f6/32.png) [@alloran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alloran)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/141 "2001-03-25T21:24:17Z")
Flymaster, I am referring to division of cells to make a human being, not cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Flymaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c4cdca/32.png) [@Flymaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flymaster)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/142 "2001-03-25T21:27:45Z")
Well, they can all become humans, too. Takes significantly more tweaking, but it’s possible. ---
**Author:** ![alloran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a587f6/32.png) [@alloran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alloran)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/143 "2001-03-25T21:38:25Z")
Now we’re just getting into technicalities. Gee, this is so productive. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Holly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/48db29/32.png) [@Holly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Holly)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/144 "2001-03-25T21:41:47Z")
Another thought. Even if 100% of all women who had abortions experienced adverse emotional reactions, this would still not be a legitimate reason to outlaw abortion. Women, as adults, should be allowed to weigh the risks for themselves. We don’t need the government to protect our emotional health for us. I’d be interested in knowing the emotional consequences of giving a child up for adoption. (I’ll look it up at my convenience. ;)) Anecdotally, every woman I’ve known who has placed a baby for adoption has suffered tremendous and ongoing grief. The real issue, the _only_ issue, is when personhood begins. ---
**Author:** ![Cyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@Cyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyn)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/145 "2001-03-25T21:55:42Z")
Why are so many people pro-choice? Because having a choice is a lot better than not having a choice. ---
**Author:** ![Holly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/48db29/32.png) [@Holly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Holly)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/146 "2001-03-25T22:00:35Z")
Here’s a (pro-adoption) site that discusses the emotional aftermath of giving a child up for adoption: [after adoption](http://www.adoption.com/library/articles/birthpar.shtml). Not that this is relevant to the morality of abortion, but it kind of blows the whole “just put the kid up for adoption” argument, and it makes abortion look like a walk in the park. ---
**Author:** ![Flymaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c4cdca/32.png) [@Flymaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flymaster)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/147 "2001-03-25T22:01:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by alloran \* > \*\*Now we’re just getting into technicalities. > Gee, this is so productive. :rolleyes: \*\* How is that a technicality? I shot down your main point. Now that your point has been defeated, it’s just a technicality? ---
**Author:** ![ChoosyChipsAndCeilingWhacks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@ChoosyChipsAndCeilingWhacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChoosyChipsAndCeilingWhacks)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/148 "2001-03-25T22:02:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by alloran \* > \*\*Now we’re just getting into technicalities. > Gee, this is so productive. :rolleyes: \*\* Actually, it WOULD be productive if you would answer the questions about those technicalities, which have been put to you numerous times now. Otherwise, we can all clearly see that you have nothing to base your opinion on and are just spouting slogans you learned from anti-choice rhetoric. **Jmullaney,** there is a difference between feeding a baby after it’s born and deciding to continue with a pregnancy once it’s started. Once that decision is made, yes, it’s your responsibility. However, a zygote does not deserve the same consideration that a baby does, in my opinion. In fact, thousands of women every year slough off zygotes in the early stages of pregnancy without even ever knowing they were pregnant. Should they mourn that as a miscarriage? Should they try to “save” the lost blastula? -L ---
**Author:** ![ChoosyChipsAndCeilingWhacks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@ChoosyChipsAndCeilingWhacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChoosyChipsAndCeilingWhacks)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/149 "2001-03-25T22:07:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Holly \* > \*\*I’d be interested in knowing the emotional consequences of giving a child up for adoption. (I’ll look it up at my convenience. ;)) Anecdotally, every woman I’ve known who has placed a baby for adoption has suffered tremendous and ongoing grief. > \*\* Not to mention the emotional trauma of having to raise a child that was the product of rape, incest, or is simply unwanted. That takes a toll, not only on the mother’s emotional health, but on the entire community. -L ---
**Author:** ![Medea\_s\_Child](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Medea\_s\_Child](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Medea_s_Child)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/150 "2001-03-25T22:27:08Z")
I’m pro-choice on abortion, religion, gun control, education, work and drugs. (and lots of other things, but starting there is decent) For all the same reasons. I want the power to make the choices that are best for me in my life. (Or screw up the choices in my life…my life, my choice.) The flip side of this wish is that I need to relinquish control of other people’s lives. Just as I want to choose my religion, my schooling, my job, my stance on violence and my state of consiousness, I want to choose my reproductive capability. Since you are not me or my husband, you don’t get a part in that choice. Ever. Just as I would not presume to tell you what god to worship or where to work. Important life choices need to be left in the hands of those who are taking the consequences. I don’t suffer a bit if I force you to change your job. You could hate it, you could like it. But I don’t get the problems from the change, you do. At least if you choose to change into a job you later hate, its by your own choice and you have a sense of control over it. You think abortion is wrong? Don’t have one. ---
**Author:** ![Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilvert_s_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/151 "2001-03-25T22:42:42Z")
Last year, we discovered that our unborn child, at just past the end of the first trimester, had two non-functional kidneys. As such, if carried to term, due to the lack of amniotic fluid, she would have been either stillborn or would have lived, gasping and suffering, for at most a few days. One of the most reasoned discussions of abortion I have ever read came from Sagan - he felt that human life begins \* \*\*at the beginning of consciousness \*\* \*, which occurs around the end of the second trimester. I don’t have a cut-and-pastable cite for this, but I’ll dig up the book I read it in if anyone’s interested. Therefore, my wife and I found the situation horrible but the choice straightforward - by terminating the pregnancy well before the end of the second trimester, we prevented a situation wherein our child would be born and then immediately die in great pain and suffering. We grieved before, during, and after the procedure, but neither of us for a moment have ever second-guessed whether we made the right choice. There are people out there, who proudly wear the label “pro-life”, who would have preferred that this child was carried to term and made to suffer horribly. **That’s why I’m pro-choice.** ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/152 "2001-03-25T22:45:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Holly \* > \*\*Here’s a (pro-adoption) site that discusses the emotional aftermath of giving a child up for adoption: [after adoption](http://www.adoption.com/library/articles/birthpar.shtml). > > Not that this is relevant to the morality of abortion, but it kind of blows the whole “just put the kid up for adoption” argument, and it makes abortion look like a walk in the park. \*\* I know two women who have done both, both say that their adoptions have caused them significantly more long term pain and guilt than their abortions. Their abortions were over and done with. Their adoptions they live with every day. Both said they’d have another abortion in a heartbeat, but could never give up another child. One woman’s abortion was pre-Roe v. Wade, one in that early 1980s, so the women have very different stories and backgrounds. I’m an adoptive mom, and every day I think of my son’s b-mom and thank her for the sacrifice she made. Next question that comes up - what if she had aborted my son - well, then I wouldn’t know him. My life would not be the same, but I would not know it as any different. ---
**Author:** ![Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilvert_s_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2001, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/153 "2001-03-25T22:58:57Z")
The writing I mentioned above is from both Carl Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan, and is from the book \* Billions and Billions[/]. Here’s a link to it: [http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml](http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![Turbo\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ce73a5/32.png) [@Turbo\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turbo_Dog)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2001, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/154 "2001-03-26T00:37:20Z")
I think I figured out the problem. We’ve all been speaking English rather than Alloranese. So, speaking in a manner that alloran may be able to understand, since it’s her basis for everything she’s had to say so far: Alloran, you are wrong because I say you are. The burden of proof is on you to prove otherwise. I may or may not believe anything you say however, because my opinion is the only thing that matters. Don’t ask me questions, because I will not answer them. I will just continue to tell you that you are wrong without providing evidence. Next. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2001, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/155 "2001-03-26T00:41:41Z")
{{{Holly}}} Why am I prochoice? Despite the fact that I do not like abortion at all? Because like, others have said, it is not up to me to make decisions involving someone else’s body. Being pregnant is not a walk in the park-giving birth, even with today’s advanced medical technology, is still dangerous. Until such day that we can develope artificial wombs, there will always be abortion. Outlawing it isn’t the answer-it only makes it more dangerous. I would never ever try to tell a woman how to run her body. The Catholic Church, one of those most vocal about their disapproval of abortion, also forbids birth control. If THAT isn’t one of the most hypocritical views, I don’t know what is. Catholic hospital mergers nowadays are one of the most dangerous things facing women, imho. They deny birth control, even emergency abortion, like in the case of woman whose membranes had ruptured, and had to have an emergency abortion to save her own life. The hospital DENIED it. BTW, some of you might want to read THIS article, about abortion. [http://www.salon.com/health/feature/2000/04/24/pregnantgirl/index.html](http://www.salon.com/health/feature/2000/04/24/pregnantgirl/index.html) (Hope it’s still working, I can’t get on [Salon.com](http://Salon.com) right now to check) I myself do not want ever to have to make the choice. I like to think I would not choose abortion-but then, a lot of people say that-and change their minds. I want the freedom to be able to do so. ---
**Author:** ![alloran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a587f6/32.png) [@alloran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alloran)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2001, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/156 "2001-03-26T01:50:13Z")
Turbo Dog, you’re hilarious, really you are. ---
**Author:** ![alloran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a587f6/32.png) [@alloran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alloran)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2001, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/157 "2001-03-26T02:00:35Z")
Why do you assume I’m female? ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2001, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/158 "2001-03-26T02:04:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Turbo Dog \* > **I think I figured out the problem. We’ve all been speaking English rather than Alloranese. So, speaking in a manner that alloran may be able to understand, since it’s her basis for everything she’s had to say so far:** 1. alloran is male. Trust me on this. 2. Where do you get the impression alloran is female? 3. Hi. Opal! That said . . . alloran, were I you, I’d go and hang out in MPSIMS and IMHO for a while, taking the occasional stroll into GQ and ATMB. When you’ve figured things out here, take brief gambles into the Pit and GD. ---
**Author:** ![alloran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a587f6/32.png) [@alloran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alloran)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2001, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/159 "2001-03-26T02:13:28Z")
**iampunha** , I appreciate your help, but I think I can handle this on my own. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2001, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369/160 "2001-03-26T02:17:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > > BTW, some of you might want to read THIS article, about abortion. > [http://www.salon.com/health/feature/2000/04/24/pregnantgirl/index.html](http://www.salon.com/health/feature/2000/04/24/pregnantgirl/index.html) Thanks for the link, Guinastasia, which I am reposting after reading that article…because it is really worth reading! The world is a much more complicated, and uglier, place than is dreamt of in the “pro-life” philosophy! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-pro-choice/59369.md?page=9)