# Will you still be pro-abortion or pro-choice? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 5, 2000, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704 "2000-05-05T20:36:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/61 "2000-05-08T01:45:51Z")
To quote a friend of mine “There’s no such thing as pro-choice; The baby didn’t \* choose \* to die.” ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/62 "2000-05-08T02:14:26Z")
Gosh, Pepper, thanks for that thoughtful contribution to this thread! ---
**Author:** ![Persephone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecc23a/32.png) [@Persephone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Persephone)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/63 "2000-05-08T03:05:00Z")
To the prolifers, I say this: I support your right to choose. If you choose _not_ to have an abortion, that is fine with me. It is your decision to make, not mine. I support your right to free speech. The Constitution guarantees your right to speak out against whatever annoys you. Understand, though, that I am guaranteed the same right. If you scream in my face, that is free speech. If I tell you to p\*\*\* off, that is free speech as well. I do not like abortion. No one does, on _either side of the fence._ Pro-choicers hate it just as much as you. There’s one difference, though. You want to make it _illegal_–we want to make it _unnecessary._ If we could put the combined efforts of the pro-choice and pro-life movements together, good Goddess, we probably **could** change the world. Then we’d **all** get what we wanted. No more women dying due to back-alley abortions. More people being allowed to adopt. Every pregnancy carried to term because the mother _chooses_ to, not because she was _forced_ to. Every child born healthy, and raised in a safe, loving environment. Is that too much to ask? ---
**Author:** ![Satan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/64 "2000-05-08T03:28:09Z")
“If you don’t want an abortion, don’t get one!” * * * Yer pal, Satan _TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING: Four weeks, one day, 1 hour, 28 minutes and 4 seconds. 1162 cigarettes not smoked, saving $145.31. Life saved: 4 days, 50 minutes._ ---
**Author:** ![Anti\_Pro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Anti\_Pro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anti_Pro)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/65 "2000-05-08T03:51:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*\*Tassey isn’t ‘ANTI’ choice. She probably makes hundreds of them every day. > > \*\* > > Yes. And wouldn’t it be great to just take a bunch of them away from her? You know, make choices for her? I’ll bet she would love it if she was forced to do things that she would not otherwise choose. And you would too, I suppose… > > \*\* You suppose wrong. ---
**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:** [May 8, 2000, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/66 "2000-05-08T05:52:33Z")
> [@](#): > > A 10 year old is breathing on its own. A fetus never does. > A 10 year old has a fully functioning brain. A fetus during the first trimester does not. > A 10 year old has a fully functional nervous system. A etus during the first trimester, does not. > A 10 year old is not physically attatched and owing it’s existance to its mother. A fetus - until well into the second trimester, is. Well, fetuses do expand and contract their lungs. Yes, there’s no air there yet, but they’re dointg the same thing that they would be if there were air. Fully functioning brain? Ask any ten year old you know about integral calculus, or the Crimean War, or _Moby Dick_. And everyone of any age (with the possible exception of Adam and Eve) owes their existance to their mother. And yes, a fetus is physically attached to the pregnant woman. Does this give the fetus the right to kill the woman, too? The reason I brought up the comparison of a nine-month fetus and a newborn baby is that it is legal, even if rare, to kill the one, but not the other. Any reason why this is? As to back-alley abortions, a law banning abortion would ban them, too. Since when is “people are going to do it anyway” a reason to make anything legal? Finally, as to the line where the collection of cells can be considered a person. I mentioned neural activity for two reasons: First, that which makes people what we are is our neural activity. A fetus becomes a person when it starts doing that which people do. We can’t determine the first “thought”, but we can determine the first thing that might be considered a thought. Secondly, neural activity is, in fact, something that can be measured. In most cases, no test is needed: A collection of undifferentiated zygotic cells has no neural activity; something that’s sucking its thumb does. If the matter is ambiguous, then do an EEG-- I’m not exactly sure of how one does this in utero, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of cases of it being done. ---
**Author:** ![evilbeth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/evilbeth/32/2268_2.png) [@evilbeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilbeth)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/67 "2000-05-08T07:53:45Z")
Chronos wrote: > [@](#): > > The reason I brought up the comparison of a nine-month fetus and a newborn baby is that it is legal, even if rare, to kill the one, but not the other. Any reason why this is? I believe Satan gave you a good response and also pointed out that your example is basically the same as comparing a live human with a recently deceased one. For that matter, why do people in a vegetative state on life support have fewer rights than those who are “fully functioning?” I mean, the vegetable can’t make decisions for himself, he can’t live without the support machines and his family/next of kin etc. has the right to terminate that life at any time. Why is this fair? The vegetable doesn’t have the choice of whether or not he should be taken off life support. And he is only sucking financial resources from his family–not nutrients _and_ money. He is actually less of a drain on the family than a fetus. They can walk away from him at any time _without risking their own health_ and let other people worry about him. It’s not like they have to breathe for him or feed him or carry him around until he either gets better or dies naturally. So, this vegetable has the potential (however minute) to wake up and become a great person (maybe invent a cure for cancer), he is technically alive (true, he has diminished brain activity but with the assistance of a “machine” of some type, he gets oxygen and food), he has no choice in determining what happens to him, he just happens to be a burden on the family (probably due to an accident), and they (family) are not financially, emotionally, or physically capable of taking care of him for years to come. So, it is considered not only totally acceptable but sometimes, morally correct, to “kill” him. (You say “abortion”, I say “euthanasia”) Yet, go back and substitute the word “fetus” for vegetable and for some reason, people consider that a totally different matter. I don’t get it. I realize this is rambling. It’s late. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/68 "2000-05-08T15:13:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Does this give the fetus the right to kill the woman, too? According to quite a few people, yes. There are those who truly believe that a fetus is a living being, with a soul, and do not believe in abortion even if the pregnancy is a danger to the health of the mother. Apparently, you believe in abortion in those cases, or you wouldn’t have just used this argument. But see, I just don’t get this. Either you believe in the sanctity of all life and personhood, or you don’t. The minute you start attributing more value to one “person” as opposed to another, you start getting into some rather hairy ethics–might I say, the same thing you accuse pro-choicers of doing. See, we pro-choicers put the rights of a living, breathing woman ahead of that of a fetus. Hard-line pro-lifers do not, and say that the woman has no right to take a life, no matter what, even if said life is putting her own life in danger. If you get soft on that stance, you are putting the woman ahead of the fetus. Just as we are. Only difference is that you think the fetus is a person, and most pro-choicers do not. So this means that if you’re a soft-line pro-lifer, YOU (the person who decides on the laws, anyway) get to decide who lives or dies. What makes you, in that case, any different from a woman who chooses to get an abortion, for whatever reason? ---
**Author:** ![Sweet\_Lotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sweet\_Lotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweet_Lotus)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/69 "2000-05-08T17:45:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > To quote a friend of mine > “There’s no such thing as pro-choice; The baby didn’t \* choose \* to die.”\*\* I believe that the “baby” does choose to die, by picking a mother that s/he knows is unable to care for it once it is out of the womb. I believe that these children only need a life that is that long to learn all they need from that particular lifetime. That is my faith. Hmmmm, no one is responding to my “harm-reduction” post… ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/70 "2000-05-08T18:32:25Z")
Chronos wrote: > [@](#): > > As to back-alley abortions, a law banning abortion would ban them, too. Um … … … No, I’m not going to dignify this surreal statement with a response. ---
**Author:** ![Sweet\_Lotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sweet\_Lotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweet_Lotus)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/71 "2000-05-08T19:38:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Chronos wrote: > > > [@](#): > > > > As to back-alley abortions, a law banning abortion would ban them, too. > > Um … No, I’m not going to dignify this surreal statement with a response. > \*\* I might - um, Chronos, what do you think a back-alley abortion **is**? Because what it is in real life is the kind of abortion that happens when abortion is illegal (see my above post). Shocking, I know, but women who do not want to be pregnant don’t just say; “Oh, the government has decided that life begins at conception, so I better not abort this fetus, d’oh, d’oh, d’oh…” They go to a butcher (e.g. “Man with a textbook and borrowed instruments” - See Satan’s first post), pay him and get their uterus good and perforated. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/72 "2000-05-08T19:48:51Z")
You beat me to the punch, Gaudere, because _personhood_ is indeed the crux of the issue. “Person” may be more casual sounding than “human” or “life” but it’s less ambiguous (and less emotionally laden than “baby” or “child”). If you can think, “I’m alive” then you’re a person. If you can’t, then you’re not. We all know that dogs have feelings and unique personalities, yet the Humane Society, IIRC, routinely exterminates canine beings. This raises the bar for the fetus to live up to pretty high. You can aruge that a dog is more intelligent and therfore more person-like than a newborn baby, but that doesn’t negate the principle. Out of pragmatism we have an ample margin of safety, reaching back into the third trimester, giving a fetus who has reached that point the benefit of the doubt. It’s symbols vs substance. A fetus has a beating heart? So does an earthworm. Anti-abortion literature sometimes mentions a fetus having “brain waves”. Again, so does an earthworm, but now we’re getting somewhere. What kind of brain waves? IIRC, it is the neo-cortex of the human brain which is the seat of our intelligence, but this does not begin to form until the third trimester. The parts of the brain which form earlier in the pregnancy are identical to those of more primitive forms of LIFE, so without a human brain, the fetus isn’t human. It’s all about the brain. That’s substantive. Brain, brain, brain, brain, brain. ---
**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:** [May 8, 2000, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/73 "2000-05-08T21:06:06Z")
Yes, exactly, sqweels, personhood is the crux of the matter. If a fetus is a person, then under no circumstances is it moral to abort the fetus. If a fetus is not a person, then abortion is no more problematic than an appendectomy. What’s left to be debated is, when does that collection of cells become a person? If (big if) you have a situation where it is impossible to save both the pregnant woman/mother and the fetus/baby, then I could see that there would be a moral dilemma, but I don’t see how such could be the case. Are there really any cases where an abortion would save the woman’s life, but a Caesarean or an early induced (live) delivery wouldn’t? Oh, and to Satan’s point about all late-term abortions that occur being necessary due to complications: Maybe most, but I know personally of at least one case where it wasn’t. When my aunt was pregnant with her first child, at nine months, after her water broke, it was taking her a long time to deliver the baby. The doctor “induced delivery” using a saline solution of lethal concentration, against her knowledge or wishes. Yes, it was judged as malpractice, but had the doctor done something similar after the baby was out of the womb, he’d have been charged with murder. By the way, Satan, unless you know of some way to kill something that’s already dead, your example of “What’s the differerence between a live person and a newly deceased corpse” doesn’t make any sense. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/74 "2000-05-08T21:35:49Z")
> [@](#): > > When my aunt was pregnant with her first child, at nine months, after her water broke, it was taking her a long time to deliver the baby. The doctor “induced delivery” using a saline solution of lethal concentration, against her knowledge or wishes. Yes, it was judged as malpractice, but had the doctor done something similar after the baby was out of the womb, he’d have been charged with murder. You do realize that that is just as anti-choice as banning abortions, right? That’s why the doctor was sued for malpractice, and rightly so. Probably SHOULD have been charged with murder, too, given that the baby (after nine months and in the middle of labor I can feel comfortable using that term) was in the middle of being delivered, and most likely would have been perfectly viable had a caesarean been performed. When and where did this happen? I’d like to look up the legal case–I could probably use that later. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/75 "2000-05-08T21:40:55Z")
Isn’t malpractice like that already illegal? ---
**Author:** ![Satan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/76 "2000-05-08T21:57:03Z")
> [@](#): > > **You suppose wrong.** Oh, okay. You just like taking away _some_ of her choices. Maybe not the important things like what she might have for dinner, but the really unimportant stuff like whether or not she is prepared to be a parent, and what she does with her body. Little things like that… * * * Yer pal, Satan _TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING: Four weeks, one day, 19 hours, 57 minutes and 14 seconds. 1193 cigarettes not smoked, saving $149.16. Life saved: 4 days, 3 hours, 25 minutes._ ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/77 "2000-05-08T23:01:04Z")
Sata, I don’t think Anti Pro wants abortion to be outlawed. He is merely against abortion. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2000, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/78 "2000-05-09T00:08:38Z")
Aren’t we all? ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2000, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/79 "2000-05-09T01:00:14Z")
We will never be able to nail down a precise point at which a fetal–or newborn–brain first forms a conscious thought. The best we can do is as I suggested: Consider it sometime in the third trimester and give it a wide berth. The end of the second trimester also conicides with the point of viability outside the womb. I wouldn’t be opposed to a ban on abortions after that point, except in the case of severe fetal abnormaility or when a _doctor_ decides the woman’s life is in danger. As you can see, this goes even farther than the ban on “partial birth” abortions. I might also accept the 24 hour “right to know” provision, parental notification, and a ban on all tax money going for abortion. The question to pro-lifers then would be, “Is this it now?” You really went to the mat on these, so this must be exactly what you want for Christmas, right? Once you get what you want, you’re not going to come back demanding more, are you? ---
**Author:** ![RoboDude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@RoboDude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RoboDude)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2000, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704/80 "2000-05-09T02:42:15Z")
What exactly is the “24 hour right to know provision”, anyway? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-you-still-be-pro-abortion-or-pro-choice/18704.md?page=5)