Why are you pro choice or pro life?

Great Debates
1

I am pro choice because…

The pro-life movement is built on lying and twisting the emotions of others.
The pro-life movement is built on the use of religious dogma to control the lives of others.
The pro-life movement is built on the idea that women cannot and should not be permitted anything but punishment if they don’t engage in the “right kind” of sex life, ignoring the idea that people can make mistakes, be raped, be molested, or that circumstance plays a role in outcomes.
The pro-life movement completely ignores children after they are born.
The idea of “dead babies” is a smokescreen for various policy initiatives which decay Constitutional rights and privileges. (For people that do not know, Roe v. Wade is one of the cornerstones of the Constitutional right to privacy, where it pertains to medical decisions. The Supreme Court ruled, with Roe v. Wade, that medical decisions about reproductive care are not and should not be a topic of control for the state, and that women are ensured a Constitutional right to the ability to decide when and where they reproduce, and that the state has no business controlling and no stake in that decision.)
Pro-life arguments hinge on the idea that some people are less important than others (as well as on the idea that a hypothetical person is more important than a woman.)
Pro-life positions rely on pathos.
Every pro-life demonstration I’ve been exposed to has been incredibly contemptuous of the rights of parents and children.
The extension of “personhood” to hypothetical persons is an extraordinary extension of the interests of the state.

Even though I AM Christian, I do not want religion or the state dictating women’s free rights.
I want to hear your thoughts…GO!

2

Brace yourself for vehement agreement.

3

I’m pro-choice because I do not believe criminally restricting abortion is an effective mechanism for preventing abortion, which is an ancient practice that was widely practiced long before it was broadly legalized. I believe it being illegal will lead to a large number of societal ills and problems. I am morally opposed to abortion but believe it should be seen as something to reduce in frequency with better support for mothers, especially lower income mothers, better access to contraceptive care and more robust sex education.

4

Agree. I think it should be illegal to force women to continue their pregnancy.

5

I’m “mildly” pro-life. That is to say, on an intellectual level, I consider a fetus to be a living person the same way that it’s illegal to destroy a bald eagle egg, because those eagles are protected and it’s recognized that an egg represents an…eagle on the way. The argument that “a fetus is no different than your appendix” makes zero sense to me because nobody ever bemoans an appendectomy, “My appendix had plans to grow up and go to Harvard!”

That being said, I freely admit that my gut feeling isn’t consistent. To me, abortion is like one of the most unimportant things on my political radar. The fact that 1 million “murders” are taking place every year, according to that fetus equals person logic, doesn’t perturb me. That, IMHO, is one of the most valid complaints by the pro-choice side, that there’s a vast gap between what pro-lifers say and how their actions actually reflect their philosophy.

6

Not a topic of control for the state? State has no business? Cite?

~Max, pro choice until viability but state’s righter

7

The eagle egg…our population is a healthy size, there’s no reason to encourage people have more babies. This is a troubling point, since population rise is leveling off and this situation may not last long. Without getting too dystopian about it, I can foresee a world where human numbers are perceived as more limited and the culture of freedom in reproduction trends towards encouraging more births. In that case we may come to define ‘person’ more broadly and not be so lenient about the option of abortion. This may be happening already. It doesn’t mean we’re headed to a forced birth situation, more and more people may simply come to see it as not an OK option.

8

I’m re-reading the text of Roe v. Wade—they ruled the state has some stake here, but not so much that it can overrule the individual choice before certain benchmarks are reached.)

9

FWIW the Roe ruling engaged in what is called “rights weighing” the court acknowledge the State had a right and an interest in protecting fetal life (this isn’t that controversial if you look at the history of law) and the woman had a right to privacy in getting medical treatment. The court determined that weighing those competing rights and interests, that during the first two trimesters, during which fetal life lacks viability outside the womb, the State’s interests are simply less compelling than the woman’s, and thus the State cannot restrict abortion during those two trimesters.

Planned Parenthood v Casey revised the standard–under Roe the trimester system was used because it reflected medical knowledge/practice of the time, under Casey the trimester system was abandoned, instead the principle was just firmly established that the State’s interests only outweigh the mother’s when the fetus is “viable” outside the womb, which is a dynamic target based on evolving medical science over time. Casey also established things around limitations to the State’s interests in protecting fetal life when there are factors like the health / life of the mother at play.

10

I’m pro-life, simply because I believe abortion is the murder of an innocent human.

11

I was pro-life because I thought it was common sense obvious that the baby is a human and should not be discarded as trash as that devalues all of us, much the same way that BLM demonstrates that humans fall to the level that we treat the worst treated group of us. By lifting up unborn babies we are lifting up all humanity. My thoughts on this also were thinking that is what God wanted, as God doesn’t want us to kill our babies, and when it happened to infants in the bible (infants through into the fire), God was so shocked that He said that this was so horrid it didn’t even come to his mind that people would do such a thing. I liked that to the abortions, where the medical incinerator which was akin to the fire in the biblical story.

But that changed when God showed me I was wrong. He brought into my life 5-6 women who confided in me that they had an abortion - yes really and why I assume that was God’s doing. The first one I tired to help by telling her she just has to repent of the abortion as murder. Yes I never saw that woman since. The next one and the following women I listened to, and heard their stories. I listened instead of talked. What I heard started to work on my heart. They were not angry at the baby, others or God (which I assumed), the only anger in their stories were directed at them. At this time 2 biblical passages came up, one where Jesus states murder is actually anger, and the other one is the woman caught in the act of adultery, which the religious wanted her stoned to death, which Jesus turned it around those who wanted her dead basically condemn themself in the end. Both pointed to the decision of at least these women was based on love, not anger, making a very hard choice, and the anger was from those who feel she was committing murder. This was further confirmed by researching the Bible myself, which abortion is not mentioned (why not if this is a book that is support to be helpful for our lives and it is such a pressing issue today), crime for committing a miscarriage seems to be a civil offense, and most tellingly the Bible states the soul of the unborn is in secret places underground while God knits the body together, so the soul is somewhat not there yet.

I also saw how that elevated woman, it’s a beautiful gift and awesome responsibility God has given woman which does nothing to put them down and eveything to life them up, God gives her the decision.

But I fee with that said l feel many are being deceived as I was into supporting many atrocities and evil leaders such as Trump thinking and believing abortion is a litmus test for who God has sent and approved, thereby making all the stuff they do the right thing. And really I don’t blame them, abortion kills apx 1/4 of the unborn, that’s big numbers if you accept it as human slaughter, 1/4 of our population. I didn’t even stop to consider what if I got God wrong here, and I wouldn’t have stopped if God has not had those women came to me and allow me to listen to them.

12

The religious aspect of it is interesting–I think abortion is immoral for non-religious reasons. Although I was a Catholic until my late teens when I became an atheist, so it’s impossible that to some degree my religious upbringing didn’t influence my lifelong outlook.

It’s interesting that I think a lot of religious people assume abortion = murder is a well-established religious principle that has never been seriously questioned in Christianity. However, Christianity developed in a culture (Roman) where abortion was not all that infrequent, and not usually punished. I believe it was always illegal in some contexts in Rome, but for cultural and political reasons those laws were rarely enforced AFAIK. The actual position of the Roman Catholic Church as an example, held for many centuries, I think in some respect until the 19th century, that abortion was only a sin “after the quickening” of the fetus. Most Protestant churches followed sort of a similar timeline. It wasn’t until well into the 20th century that it seemed to become common and pervasive “received wisdom” among Christians that fetuses are “ensouled” at the moment of conception. Historical Christianity focused much more on the point of “quickening” of the fetus.

Where religion and the law often are interrelated, Western laws around abortions often centered around the quickening as well, with an action that terminates a pregnancy prior to the quickening not only being legal most of the time, but also not even seen as an abortion, in a historical sense.

I don’t know that this knowledge should really speak to us one way or another, other than maybe for people with a religious viewpoint that leads them to being pro-life, should probably confront the fact this wasn’t wisdom passed down directly from God. It was interpreted from men, and the majority interpretation was that it was only a sin to abort after the quickening, for most of the history of the Christian religion.

I mentioned that I’m pro-choice but morally against abortion. For me the moral evaluation of abortion exists on a sliding scale. When the fetus has a developed brain and is fully viable outside of the womb, I generally view abortion as very nearly murder, if not murder, and think it should not occur unless there is a serious medical reason justifying it. When is that point? Well I think we lack the scientific knowledge to know for sure, because my conception of when it reaches that level of concern is when brain development has reached the point that if the fetus was removed from the womb, it would function very similarly to a born-alive, premature baby. Certainly by the third trimester the brain has developed to this point. Early on, at around 5 weeks when primitive brain structures are building out, I do not believe the fetus has developed to a point that I view it as human life.

Before the point of fetal viability / brain development where I view it as virtually indistinguishable from human life, I still think there is an immoral aspect to abortion, but I think it is much less of a moral wrong than murder.

13

I am pro-choice for moral reasons. You get one kind of social reality when women can control their reproductive situation, and hence their sexual one as well. You get a vastly different one when they can’t, and I consider the latter to be morally abhorrent.

14

I thought it became a capital offense after quickening, under explicit Mosaic law.

Eta: nope, you’re right and I’m wrong on that.

~Max

15

Seems to me that the lesson of the last century is that we are careless of other people’s lives. Educated, smart people have lots of fancy theories as to why some people are not really people. I suppose the might be right. Still, in such important matters, it is important to be carful and to err on the side of caution.

16

In the end women just want freedom and basic human rights. No, the chocolates and flowers aren’t going to make them happy, it’s freedom. It’s not surprising how many people (can I note a large majority are religious?) want to vote away women rights. Religious (note vast majority-Christian) Americans want to vote out women’s rights. It’s ironic that Sharia law is an equivalence of this.

Yea I am Christian but again refer to Roe v. Wade.

17

So educated, smart people are bad?

18

My understanding in pagan Rome is that the typical and legal way of disposing of an unwanted baby was exposure, basically leaving the baby to die (well to the gods) on it’s own after it was born, though abortion was also practiced. It was the early church that opposed this calling exposure murder. The quickening point came later as a decision point.

For myself and from how I can see the scriptures, the line is very simple, inside the woman’s body, it’s her decision to make, even if the fetus would be viable. It is right that she would have this decision. The baby is not yet into the world, thus not subject to its laws, protections or consequences. This is by God’s plan, she makes the call if this baby becomes subject to them or not. Once the baby is out all the stuff of the world now applies.

19

Quite often. Further, new ways of thinking about things are often wrong. Shocking as that might seem.

20

As are old ways about thinking about things.