# Why are you pro choice or pro life? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 1, 2021, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904 "2021-09-01T14:48:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2021, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/281 "2021-09-10T23:26:54Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I know this. You are saying that the world won’t implode if we have legal abortion and that is true after 50 years of Roe. Why does that mean it is the better position? It doesn’t, in itself; it just makes me wonder why you keep mentioning the bit about how we all got here. You go on and on about it, but it doesn’t actually seem to have any significance if the next generation is still going to get here anyway. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2021, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/282 "2021-09-10T23:29:55Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > You go on and on about it, but it doesn’t actually seem to have any significance if the next generation is still going to get here anyway. Part of them will. That’s the point. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2021, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/283 "2021-09-10T23:32:54Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Part of them will. That’s the point Well, yes. I mean, that’s how _I_ got here; abortion was legal, and my mother decided to give birth anyway; rather a lot of other women around then decided the same way, and other women decided the _opposite_ way, and — so what? In a world where abortion is legal, that’s what — happens? I don’t get your point. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2021, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/284 "2021-09-10T23:33:31Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > With regard to a toddler, I’d remind you that the reason I give the pregnant person absolute authority to terminate is because she’s facing the risk and burden of childbirth. Yes. I don’t put this on my “fuck it it doesn’t matter” page, but it is not unimportant that billions of other women have done the same thing. When you look at that, placed against a potential human life, I’m not sure how one can be so dismissive. > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Once birth has taken place, that is no longer a factor, so we can apply the normal rules of personhood. Yes, but why? That’s what we keep getting at. One second before it is born it is full property of the woman; one second after it is a child of God. It makes no sense. > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Plus the myriad other traits a toddler has acquired that distinguishes them from a fetus, not the least of which are social relationships. Again, why does this matter? If I’m a loner, I am less of a human? ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2021, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/285 "2021-09-10T23:34:15Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Well, yes. I mean, that’s how _I_ got here; abortion was legal, and my mother decided to give birth anyway; rather a lot of other women around then decided the same way, and other women decided the _opposite_ way, and — so what? In a world where abortion is legal, that’s what — happens? > > I don’t get your point. To some of us that means millions were murdered. ---
**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 10, 2021, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/286 "2021-09-10T23:34:32Z")
In fact, the number of abortions has been dropping, despite their legality. I wonder what will happen in Texas? I suppose it will be hard to track, because a lot of women will leave the state to have abortions. But I bet that the pressure to “do it now, while it’s legal” will increase the total number of pregancies that are terminated. But that’s a digression. The fact that people routinely choose to allow babies grow inside them doesn’t mean that we all have a moral obligation to have our biology hijacked by a pregnancy. That we all need to accept the discomfort, the metabolic changes, the risk of diabetes, the aging that pregnancy entails. In the old days, the only way to avoid that was to totally avoid sex, or risk dangerous abortifacients that often killed, or risk dying in delivery. The world is a better place for birth control and the possibility of safe abortions, and the likelihood of surviving a pregnancy. The fact that men and women can have sex without risking all that is a wonderful thing. But I’m afraid I’m heading off-topic. I answered the question. I don’t think society’s obligation to protect things that have the potential to develop into people is as strong as society’s obligation to protect actual living people. So I think women have a right to control whether they are pregnant. And I understand that if you start from a different understanding of what makes something a human being, you are likely to reach a different conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2021, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/287 "2021-09-10T23:36:06Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > To some of us that means millions were murdered And you can _make that argument._ I assure you, I _understand_ that argument; I _get the point_ of saying it. I don’t get the point of saying But That’s How We All Got Here, which (a) you keep saying but which (b) seems irrelevant to that other point. ---
**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 10, 2021, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/288 "2021-09-10T23:49:33Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > We were all inside a body. I’m trying not to have this turn out the same as all other of these debates. Do you see my point? I get that being inside a woman’s body is different than a dog or my toddler, but why does it tip the balance, when it is not an unusual proposition but how all of us, women included, got here? I don’t see your point at all. Lots of things are usual, and some of them are essential to the way the world works; but the fact that it usually gets cold in winter doesn’t stop us from heating houses, and the fact that an untreated broken leg will kill you doesn’t mean that we don’t set bones. > [@UltraVires](#): > > The world didn’t implode pre-Roe either. It did for some of the women who were unwillingly pregnant. > [@UltraVires](#): > > Part of them will. That’s the point. Do you think that everyone should be required to be pregnant every possible moment from the time their bodies have a chance of sustaining the pregnancy until they finish menopause? Because, if not, then only part of the possible number of humans who could be born will be born. And if so, then not only would you be enslaving all of the women on the planet, but most of those children would starve to death or die of disease, but not before seriously damaging the carrying capacity of the planet so that the proportion of the next generation that survived would have to be even smaller. > [@UltraVires](#): > > it is not unimportant that billions of other women have done the same thing. When you look at that, placed against a potential human life, I’m not sure how one can be so dismissive. I’m not sure how you can be so dismissive of the fact that some of those women died in childbirth, some of them suicided rather than bear that child, some of them were seriously physically damaged, some of them were unable to undertake or complete work that might have saved other lives, some of them had their lives so disrupted that they were unable to properly care for themselves or for other children, some of those other children died as a result. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2021, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/289 "2021-09-10T23:52:36Z")
Hopefully if we don’t solve anything, which we probably won’t, at least you will accept that I am not condemning women as being trashy little whores. It is a tough thing, and I think both people on each side have thought through it. I think even people on my side don’t view a fetus as a “full” human because we make exceptions for the life of the mother and in my case for rape/incest. It really is a values issue where you place your first thought you come to a different conclusion. IMHO, at the end of the day, I see a woman’s convenience. And that word is probably too dismissive against her strong interest. And I place that against (what I believe is) a human life and what can only be said is at least a potential human life. To me the question answers itself. Unplanned pregnancy is terrible. Never having a life in the first place is worse, even if we disagree on what that entity is. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/290 "2021-09-11T00:03:19Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Hopefully if we don’t solve anything, which we probably won’t, at least you will accept that I am not condemning women as being trashy little whores. It is a tough thing, and I think both people on each side have thought through it. > > I think even people on my side don’t view a fetus as a “full” human because we make exceptions for the life of the mother and in my case for rape/incest. It really is a values issue where you place your first thought you come to a different conclusion. IMHO, at the end of the day, I see a woman’s convenience. And that word is probably too dismissive against her strong interest. And I place that against (what I believe is) a human life and what can only be said is at least a potential human life. …I keep asking you about your repeated But That’s How We All Got Here line, and you keep _replying_ by talking about all of these other points instead. ---
**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 11, 2021, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/291 "2021-09-11T00:30:58Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Never having a life in the first place is worse Why? Not billions, but trillions upon trillions of possible humans have never had a life, and never will. None of them care, because they don’t exist, and never did. And every one of us who does exist, by being conceived, prevented at least millions of other people. Only one sperm gets the egg. And, at least if our mothers intended pregnancy, prevented at least nine, most likely more, other zygotes. Only one pregnancy at a time. And you haven’t answered: do you think women should be required to be pregnant as often as physically possible, throughout their lives? Because if not, right there are an awful lot of people who don’t get to have a life in the first place; often because somebody didn’t have sex. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/292 "2021-09-11T09:15:35Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Yes. I don’t put this on my “fuck it it doesn’t matter” page, but it is not unimportant that billions of other women have done the same thing. It is entirely unimportant. It’s one of the least important imaginable concerns. Millions of other women have gotten abortions… does that rationalize it in your mind? Millions of men have gotten vasectomies, shall I put your balls under the knife against your will just because I _think_ it might prevent an abortion? This has got to be the least compelling reason anyone’s put forth yet. At least you finally left the poor dogs out of this. > [@UltraVires](#): > > One second before it is born it is full property of the woman; one second after it is a child of God. It makes no sense. I’ll explain to you: even a _wanted_ childbirth poses a significant medical risk and some physical trauma, and emotional trauma. That’s the burden of harm that I weigh. Once childbirth has passed, then that potential harm has been realized and no longer weighs on the calculus. This is never going to make sense to you because you’re a man and you’ll never have to face it. You simply don’t know and don’t care to know what this entails, so your opinion really shouldn’t enter into this at all. > [@](#): > > Again, why does this matter? If I’m a loner, I am less of a human? Have you ever seen a baby who is a self-sufficient loner? Every living baby represents someone’s investment and commitment to it. Someone has chosen it, someone has invested in its care. A fetus only represents a few pumps of semen, _until such time a woman blesses it with her commitment to being a parent_. The pregnant woman is the only god who matters in this calculus. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/293 "2021-09-11T09:54:06Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > To some of us that means millions were murdered. Which brings us back to my point: this doesn’t seem to bother ‘pro-lifers’ in many other contexts; why should it bother them in this one? Sure, not all ‘pro-lifers,’ but at least in the U.S. the overlap between ‘pro-lifers’ and the anti-mask, anti-vax contingent is huge. And if there’s any condemnation of criticism of the latter by the former, it’s been hard to find. As this plague ravages our country, ‘pro-lifers’ haven’t given a damn. So why do fetal deaths trouble them, but not the quite preventable plague deaths occurring all around them? They wouldn’t even have to fight us libs to save these lives; **they’re the main stumbling-block**. It would be low-hanging fruit, if they actually decided to be, you know, **pro-life**. But they aren’t pro-life. They’re just anti-abortion without any particular justification that they’re willing to admit to. ---
**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 11, 2021, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/294 "2021-09-11T11:36:01Z")
I think it’s the difference between an intentional act and an unintentional act/failure to act. (There’s that volition again.) If i choose to abort, i am actively killing a human fetus. If i don’t bother to get vaccinated or wear a mask, i am not making an intentional, volitional choice to kill someone else. I’m just letting God kill all those people. (Even though God gave me the tools to avoid doing so.) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/295 "2021-09-11T14:52:29Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > But why is volition important? I personally don’t “consider volition important” in this context. I mean, volition is an important part of being a human person, but I don’t think it represents a bright line between “person” and “not a person”. I’m perfectly comfortable, as I said, with laws drastically restricting abortion rights in the third trimester to protect the right to life of the late-term fetus, even though it doesn’t have “volition” yet. But I’m also perfectly comfortable, as I said, with laws not restricting abortion rights whatsoever through at least the first trimester. Because the embryo/fetus at that stage hasn’t developed far enough to be considered enough of a person to have a legally protected right to life. The “potential person” rhetoric is just feeble sophistry. We don’t assign rights based solely on potential rather than actual status. I could potentially become POTUS, for example, but right now I’m not entitled to Secret Service protection just on the off-chance that I will. The fetus’s “innocence” or lost opportunity to “have a life” is likewise irrelevant. We destroy various types of non-human-persons all the time that are morally innocent and could have had a life. If you aren’t a fully human person, then you don’t have the same right to life as a fully human person. Period. And emotional appeals to consider your “innocence” or “potential” don’t override the rights of fully human persons, such as the bodily-autonomy right of a pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/296 "2021-09-11T15:55:09Z")
I know that the late Christopher Hitchens drew a lot of criticism on this board, much of it well-deserved. But, I do agree with his [2003 essay](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vanityfair.com/news/2003/02/hitchens200302/amp) that the issue isn’t as simple as either side would have it. I’m nagged by the syllogism that a human fetus is a human being, and a human being has human rights. I don’t like either side’s ideology. I guarantee you that some of those fetuses so beloved by Texas are now only doomed to lives of abuse, neglect and desperation, and will die on the gurney at Huntsville. On the other side, the rights of the mother have often been no more than Muffy’s right to complete her useless degree in communications free of inconvenience so she could go on to push opioids as a rep for the pharmaceuticals industry. Non-ideological misanthropes like me have to fall back upon mere pragmatism, which dictates that abortion should be made as safe and rare as possible, like all forms of violence that human beings inflict upon each other. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/297 "2021-09-11T16:10:55Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > We destroy various types of non-human-persons all the time that are morally innocent and could have had a life. What is a “non human-person”? > [@Kimstu](#): > > If you aren’t a fully human person, then you don’t have the same right to life as a fully human person. Period. And emotional appeals to consider your “innocence” or “potential” don’t override the rights of fully human persons, such as the bodily-autonomy right of a pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy. I don’t think a single person says that a fetus/unborn child has the same rights as an adult. If they didn’t there would not be a life of the woman exception because the two entities would be equal. But I don’t see why this has to be sort of an on/off switch. Sure, the fetus/unborn child does not override a woman’s right to live, but it is not merely nothing. The question is does it override the desire of the adult woman not to allow it to live. That is a starkly different question. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/298 "2021-09-11T16:14:41Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I keep asking you about your repeated But That’s How We All Got Here line I mean that you cannot compare such a basic necessity of life like pestilence or something horrible. You can eject trespassers from your house because as a society, we view trespassing in and of itself as an improper behavior. We believe that people who trespass are acting in contravention to societal norms. I find it difficult to say that a fetus/child/person is acting in such a fashion when that child/fetus/person is simply doing what every one of us in history has done. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/299 "2021-09-11T16:20:49Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I mean that you cannot compare such a basic necessity of life like pestilence or something horrible. > > You can eject trespassers from your house because as a society, we view trespassing in and of itself as an improper behavior. We believe that people who trespass are acting in contravention to societal norms. Well, then, why not analogize it to living in my house? We, as a society, don’t say _that’s_ improper; you can live in my house if I say you can live here — just like I can eject you as a trespasser if I say, no, you _can’t_ live here. And, as it happens, right now there _are_ people who are living in my house, and people who aren’t — and some of the latter are people that I _would_ allow to live here, and some that, well, I wouldn’t. What follows? ---
**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 11, 2021, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904/300 "2021-09-11T16:23:31Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I don’t think a single person says that a fetus/unborn child has the same rights as an adult. If they didn’t there would not be a life of the woman exception because the two entities would be equal. But I don’t see why this has to be sort of an on/off switch. Sure, the fetus/unborn child does not override a woman’s right to live, but it is not merely nothing. The question is does it override the desire of the adult woman not to allow it to live. That is a starkly different question. Yes, the question is whether the fetus, which does not have the full rights of a human being, has such a strong claim to life as to override a woman’s right to defend her own body. I think it should not. Now … I do think that as the fetus develops it becomes more and more like a human being, and it should take a stronger reason to kill it. If a woman simply doesn’t want to be pregnant, i believe she had a moral obligation to act on that desire promptly, or not at all. I don’t think it’s okay to abort an 8 month old fetus “just because”, and I’m okay with laws outlawing that. But a six week old embryo? I find it incredibly depressing that a state that allows a man to shoot and kill a teenager who comes to his door trick-or-treating, because it values the right to defend your home so highly, values a woman’s right to defend her BODY so little. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-pro-choice-or-pro-life/949904.md?page=16)