# Why does it have to be all or nothing with abortion? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 4, 2022, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939 "2022-05-04T13:56:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mjmartin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@mjmartin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmartin)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/21 "2022-05-04T15:26:21Z")
> [@JakeRS](#): > > I don’t understand either the pro or anti abortion extremists, why does one always have to completely ignore the rest and not try to find a middle ground? How about for a middle ground we implement policies that actually work to stop unwanted pregnancies from happening in the first place? For example: Free or very inexpensive access to birth control, comprehensive sexual education for every student and better educational and career opportunities for those in poverty. None of these things will stop all abortions, but it will most certainly lower the numbers more than draconian anti-abortion laws. But those solutions would require that anti-choice people spend more money on their convictions, so I won’t hold my breath. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/22 "2022-05-04T15:39:26Z")
> [@JakeRS](#): > > In cases where the parents simply aren’t sure if they want a baby, if they will afford to be parents and so on, 2 or 3 rounds of therapy meetings are held. If the underlying reasons aren’t solved and the person still wants to go through with it, they are still allowed to. Two or three rounds of therapy? Okay… how far apart are these therapy sessions? What sort of backlog will there be? The pregnancy isn’t going to put itself on hold while the couple “works out their feelings,” and a lot of people don’t know their pregnant for a month or two, which closes that window up even further. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/23 "2022-05-04T15:42:53Z")
> [@JakeRS](#): > > Allowing women under stress and fear to just walk into a clinic without first going through a therapy session to determine the reason for such a drastic life-changing decision is equally as irresponsible and bad as not allowing abortions at all. Would you be equally okay if there was an equivalent process for pregnant women who weren’t planning on having an abortion? Should there be mandatory therapy sessions where somebody would tell them that having a child would be difficult and they should really consider having an abortion? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/24 "2022-05-04T15:49:07Z")
> [@JakeRS](#): > > Allowing women under stress and fear to just walk into a clinic without first going through a therapy session to determine the reason for such a drastic life-changing decision is equally as irresponsible and bad as not allowing abortions at all. It shouldn’t be one extremism vs the other extremism. Do you think abortion clinics do not discuss these issues with their patients? I don’t know for sure myself but I have been told by women who had abortions that the personnel and doctors would not proceed if they felt the patient was uncertain at all. I don’t see why a therapy session must be required under law. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/25 "2022-05-04T15:52:03Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > That’s because securing abortion rights is more important than the purity of the Court, which is not a level of priority that much of anything else would rise for me. The supposed political ‘purity’ of the court has never been a reality as even a cursory review of Supreme Court decisions in comparison to the political winds of the time will show. The members of the court obviously have personal opinions about political and social issues that influence their reading of the Constitution, and the notion that Supreme Court justices should be “strict Constitutionalists” who rule only on the explicit language of the document without any latitude to apply principles laid out in it onto novel legal situations, new technologies, and changing social ideals and mores, and often having to weigh compromise between conflicting principles such as freedom of speech versus public safety. Whether _Roe v. Wade_ was a good compromise is another question—I think that most people on any side of the issue would agree that it wasn’t really very definitive and there is in this case the legitimate claim of the Court making _de novo_ ‘new law’ instead of adjudicating the applicability of existing laws—but it was an issue upon which a decision needed to be made, and leaving the issue to states to decide as they will results in a patchwork of various legal efforts of questionable Constitutionality within the broader issue of personal privacy (also not an explicitly listed Constitutional right but nonetheless generally viewed as a guiding principle when assessing the legitimacy of laws) and the ability for people to make decisions regarding their body that do not materially affect others. > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > IMO the pro-choice side does allow for some flexibility (when is the product of conception no longer YOUR body) but pro-life is pretty inflexible. For example I am pro-choice (yes Republican, we do exist) and have no problems with abortions before viability BUT I would outlaw partial birth abortions. Setting aside that _intact dilation and extraction_ (IDX), a.k.a. the more politically charged “partial birth abortion” is already illegal and has been since the passage of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and upheld in 2007 in _Gonzales v. Carhart_, IDX was only performed in a tiny fraction of a percent of abortion procedures, almost universally due to medically-necessary procedures to protect the life and health of the pregnant woman or non-viability of the fetus. It was preferred over an invasive D&E for fetuses well into second trimester because of the potential hazard of performing that procedure in utero, and because it involves inducing premature labor it is an involved procedure that is not done casually. The notion that IDX was somehow a procedure that encouraged women to have an abortion is absurdity at its highest, and outlawing it actually puts pregnant women who have to have a late term medically-necessary procedure at great risk. It was latched onto by anti-abortion propagandists because images of the process are as gruesome as any other major surgery and whipped people up into a frenzy even if they don’t otherwise actually care about the issue. It is a very example of the manipulation of public opinion to polarize an issue for political reasons discussed above, and literally has almost nothing to do with the debate over at-will availability of abortion options for voluntarily aborting an unwanted pregnancy. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![AzFavorite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@AzFavorite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AzFavorite)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/26 "2022-05-04T15:57:09Z")
i doubt anyone is being forced to terminate a pregnancy against their will. And your suggestions about therapists and automatic mandated abortions are really way,way out there. Awomans decision about when she should or shoukd not bear children should be hers alone. tell me what other laws are on the books mandating what men do with their family planning? if abortion is illegal women with resources will still be able to get a safe illegal termination, only poor women will be in situations that cause desperation and death and interstate travel. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/27 "2022-05-04T16:00:34Z")
I was aware of that. I was simply pointing out that a pro-choice viewpoint could allow for limitations on abortion rights whereas, except for issues to save the mother’s life I believe pro-choice makes no allowances and where they can do it politically, they would even outlaw abortion for rape and incest. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/28 "2022-05-04T16:16:03Z")
Beware of [the fallacy of the middle ground](https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/middle-ground). There are absolutist types on both sides; however refusal to compromise even to a limited extent (as in abortion in the case of rape) is mostly seen among anti-abortion rights proponents. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/29 "2022-05-04T16:17:55Z")
> [@JakeRS](#): > > In cases where the parents simply aren’t sure if they want a baby, if they will afford to be parents and so on, 2 or 3 rounds of therapy meetings are held. If the underlying reasons aren’t solved and the person still wants to go through with it, they are still allowed to. How about if abortion related therapy sessions are simply made completely free, confidential, and anonymous? Any woman who is unsure of what she wants, feels stressed and fearful of her future, can talk it over with a licensed professional. Any woman who IS sure, gets to make her own decision without having to convince someone that she’s of sound mind. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/30 "2022-05-04T16:23:43Z")
I think your second “pro-choice” was meant to be “pro-life”, or maybe I don’t understand what you’re saying. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/31 "2022-05-04T16:26:09Z")
Or how about women who don’t want any children and all and have chosen not to marry or get pregnant? How many government-mandated therapy sessions will she have to have before she’s allowed to make that decision? After all, it could just be an irrational fear of motherhood driving her decisions. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/32 "2022-05-04T16:46:48Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > What’s so special about 24 weeks that makes it a cut off period. There’s nothing “special” about any point in the gestation process that makes it a self-evident scientifically objective “cut off” point for termination of pregnancy. Fertilization isn’t it, implantation isn’t it, the first missed period isn’t it, “quickening” isn’t it, viability isn’t it, and of course arbitrary numbers like “24 weeks” or “16 weeks” or “6 weeks” aren’t it. There isn’t one. This is because a sperm and ovum becoming a human person is a continuous process that takes several months, not a binary switch flip. Decreeing at any point in that process that “this human tissue did not count as a human person one second ago but now it does” is fundamentally arbitrary. That’s just the biological reality of reproduction. Because of that, any point in the gestation process that is chosen to be the “switch-flip” moment of activating full personhood is going to be an artificial compromise between dissenting opinions. We all agree that a baby just exiting the birth canal is a human person with a right to life, and we all agree that the separate sperm and ovum that grew into that baby were not human persons with a right to life. But picking any intervening moment between those two stages as the switch-flip of official personhood is essentially and fundamentally arbitrary. No, it was not unreasonable for the Roe decision to recognize that reality and pick an arbitrary cutoff point anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/33 "2022-05-04T16:52:27Z")
You are correct. Read it as “pro-life” ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/34 "2022-05-04T16:54:39Z")
> [@JakeRS](#): > > In cases where the parents simply aren’t sure if they want a baby, if they will afford to be parents and so on, 2 or 3 rounds of therapy meetings are held. If the underlying reasons aren’t solved and the person still wants to go through with it, they are still allowed to. Who is going to pay for this therapy? If it’s the mother, there’s a whole huge swath of mothers that can’t afford that. They’ll either never pay the bill forcing them further into debt or they won’t go to therapy and they won’t be able to get the abortion (ending up either with an unwanted child or an unsafe abortion). Who chooses which therapists are allowed to make this decision? Will they be private therapists? Therapists working for or contracted by the government? How do we know that these therapists are making sure the mother is doing what is best for her as opposed to trying to talk them out the abortion? Should we also force them to get a transvaginal ultrasound as part of this therapy? What if instead of all that, we just worked on the assumption that the mother has the ability to make her own decisions? Anything else is adding an unnecessary burden to her life, and for what, political reasons? As for a middle ground, for the life of me, I can’t understand why ‘pro choice’ isn’t the middle ground. No one is prevented from having an abortion, no one is required to have one. Everyone is free to choose for themselves based on whatever metrics they want to use to make the decision. It shouldn’t matter to someone if a woman hundreds of miles away wants an abortion because she was raped by a cousin or because she doesn’t want to be pregnant in her vacation pictures this summer. Maybe we should stop calling them pro-life/anti-choice and start calling them ‘pro-choice’, since they seem to think it’s their right to make choices for others. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/35 "2022-05-04T17:04:25Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > This is because a sperm and ovum becoming a human person is a continuous process that takes several months, not a binary switch flip. Decreeing at any point in that process that “this human tissue did not count as a human person one second ago but now it does” is fundamentally arbitrary. That’s just the biological reality of reproduction. We could just accept biblical authority. A person becomes alive when they draw their first breath. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/36 "2022-05-04T17:07:44Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Therapists working for or contracted by the government? Ironically, this would be the only health care for the woman or the child that Republicans would pay for. ---
**Author:** ![Ziberian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/919ad9/32.png) [@Ziberian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ziberian)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/37 "2022-05-04T17:26:17Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Or how about women who don’t want any children and all and have chosen not to marry or get pregnant? How many government-mandated therapy sessions will she have to have before she’s allowed to make that decision? After all, it could just be an irrational fear of motherhood driving her decisions. This should be sarcasm, but any woman who has tried to have her tubes tied can tell you it’s not. A horrifying number of doctors refuse to do this procedure unless the woman has her husband’s permission (not kidding), _and_ has six kids, _and_ is over 50. Nearly impossible if you’re young, single and childless. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/38 "2022-05-04T17:28:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Ironically, this would be the only health care for the woman or the child that Republicans would pay for. And if/when a women goes to her mandatory sessions with the (republican) government funded therapist, I think it’s safe to assume the abortion won’t be approved. In fact, the ‘denied’ box will probably be pre-checked on the form. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/39 "2022-05-04T17:54:10Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > If you’re pro-life, then compromise on abortion means allowing “baby murder.” I’m pro-choice, but I have to admit it’s weird that any pro-lifer would endorse an abortion prohibition that carves out exceptions for rape or incest. A zygote/embryo/fetus resulting from rape or incest is no less a human life than that of a consensual sexual encounter, so why would anyone expect a pro-lifer be OK with murdering _this_ fetus, but not _that_ fetus? ---
**Author:** ![Ziberian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/919ad9/32.png) [@Ziberian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ziberian)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939/40 "2022-05-04T17:55:13Z")
> [@JakeRS](#): > > I had a perfectly normal and happy childhood and didn’t even know about all this until I was an adult. Who knows how many other kids could have had equally good or better childhoods if they didn’t just become a statistic. Do you know how many other kids born under similar circumstances have horrific childhoods filled with neglect and abuse? There are lots of statistics on this. If you’re an argument against abortion, isn’t Charles Manson a better argument for abortion? > [@](#): > > Allowing women under stress and fear to just walk into a clinic without first going through a therapy session to determine the reason for such a drastic life-changing decision is equally as irresponsible and bad as not allowing abortions at all. “Allowing women” ? Will men be allowed vasectomies without counseling? And shouldn’t boys be counseled about the potential children lost to masturbation? Why do YOU get to decide what hoops women must jump through for medical procedures? Under your logic you will also tell a woman how many children she will birth, and what form of birth control to use, because any unborn child is a missed chance of another Einstein (or you). It’s also a missed chance at another Hitler, but you ignore that reality. Women are perfectly able to make their own medical decisions, and it’s insulting to suggest they need counseling to understand the complexities of the situation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-have-to-be-all-or-nothing-with-abortion/963939.md?page=3)