Should parents have a say for a 10 year old to have any elective surgery? Boob job, sex change operation, gastric bypass, lasik, vasectomy, tubal ligation, facelift, cleft lip recunstruction, etc.?
Anything but abortion.
As a taxpayer, which would you prefer: paying for a one-time, reasonably straighforward medical procedure, or paying for a lifetime of social handouts?
At least you are consitently arbitrary when it comes to a person’s body. 
You’re analogy make no sense, unless you’re claiming that poor black women are inherently evil - that is what “poor inner city one parent families” is code for, last I heard.
I seem to recall a case not too long ago where a ten-eleven year old was raped by an elderly man in her apartment building and she got pregnant. I believe she had to have an abortion.
I’m pro-abortion actually but I think the whole “choice” thing is garbage and I sympathise with those who are pro-life.
Who said anything about blacks… please educate me about the codes we’re supposed to use.
Are you saying parents are “inherently evil”?
I think it is a fallacy to say that pro-choice is not pro-life, they are for the life of the mother. To be truly pro-life one cannot be pro-war or pro -self preservation,so self defense would also be against the law.
If one is truly pro-life not just pro- birth then if they force the woman to bear a child she is not emotionally, physically,financially able to care for, they will step in and support the woman,her other children or the one that is not yet born. If they are trully interested in the child’s life they will do all in their power to support it, even if it means a sacrifice on their part. If they can not do so then they (in my judgement) are not really pro-life. Pro choice is not Anti-life.
Monavis
To be truly “pro-choice” then you must allow anyone to “choose” to … (I won’t even start).
Let’s call the two sides “Pro-abortion rights” and “Anti-abortion” then and just debate the “rights”. The problem I have is with those who believe a woman’s womb trumps everything as if a fetus is the equivalent of a tumor. that no other party (parent, husband) has any say whatsoever in the matter and that elected representatives cannot agree to place any restrictions or requirements in place.
If we’re calling one side “Pro-abortion rights,” then we should call the other side “Anti-abortion rights.” I am anti-abortion in that I think that every abortion is a tragedy, but I strongly support a woman’s right to have that abortion. I oppose parental notification laws because there are many, many bad parents out there.
This isn’t just a scare tactic. Three of my step-sister’s cousins were “kidnapped” in the middle of the night and sent to such a center. Why? Because their mother didn’t want to deal with them. It took their father a couple years to wrest custody from his ex-wife and get his kids out of there.
In high school, a friend of mine was date-raped; when she told her mom, the first thing her mother said was, “Well, did you invite it?”
My mother’s family has a history of sexual abuse; my great-grandfather had his daughter declared mentally incompetent and tried to have her forcibly sterilized (we don’t know if he was successful), ostensibly because she was “living in sin,” but more likely so he continue to have sex with her without risking pregnancy. She committed suicide at age 26.
There is no doubt that these are exceptions, and that most parents love their children. But I don’t like the idea of letting someone else decide whether any given minor’s parents are likely to kick them out of the house or do them bodily harm.
As for other restrictions, I used to be of a mind with Mr2001:
but then I started thinking about the same objections that ambushed raised:
So I did some thinking and realized what I meant was that I support restrictions to abortion once the fetus can survive unaided outside the mother’s body. In my mind, the fetus becomes a seperate human being when it can survive physical seperation from the womb. I would accept restrictions only during the last two months of pregnancy, and then only with exceptions for the health of the woman or extreme circumstances.
Let’s say we have a situation where a girl or woman is pregnant and wants an abortion, but her parents (if she’s underage) or husband thinks she shouldn’t have one. Or the opposite: She wants to carry the child to term, her parents/husband thinks abortion is best. Do you have any concrete suggestions for how/to what extent the parents/husband should get to influence the desicion?
I’m not sure which potential situation I find most horrifying: To go through a pregnancy when you don’t want to, or to have an abortion you don’t want. Both seem abhorrent to me.
That’s wonderful, but my comment was directed to newcomb being.
Also, your choice of words is intriguing. I am pro-choice. I am NOT “pro-abortion.” Nobody I know or know of would consider or describe themselves as being “pro-abortion.”
Yours is the first instance I have ever heard of that phrase.
Welcome to the Straight Dope message board. We welcome debate and critical thought. We especially prize original ideas and hate dissembling and subterfuge. If you have something to say, do us all a favor and just say it.
So please. In your own words, tell us why you are “pro-abortion” and think that the whole “choice thing” is garbage.
It’s not that unusual a phrase. I’ve heard it used before, almost always by anti-abortion types; a quick google turns up quite a few usages.
Personally, I shudder at the words “pro-abortion,” since it sounds like you are perfectly willing to let an unwanted pregnancy end in abortion, even if there are other ways to prevent the pregnancy in the first place.
I am pro-choice myself. I do believe that any woman has the right to decide what is going to happen to her body in the next eight months or so (it usually takes at least a month before abortion even becomes a choice, right?), and I do not believe that any governmental body or religion should force a woman to go through a full-term pregnancy if she really doesn’t want to do it. (This is speaking as a woman who has been through two full-term pregnancies herself.)
At the same time, I am anti-abortion. I firmly believe that abortion is a conscient extinction of another life, and that it should be reserved as a last-ditch effort to avoid having a baby that could cause even MORE problems for the mother. It is the mother’s right to decide whether the baby itself is a problem (hence my pro-choice stance), but I would prefer to see the government take more steps toward teaching and providing reliable birth control to all sexually active people, to reduce the need for abortions.
I, myself, could never have an abortion. I did have a scare when I was in college, but I would have preferred to give birth and find adoptive parents than have an abortion.
While Roe v. Wade affirms the mother’s right to choose what happens to her body, I believe that the government has a LONG way to go before it can rightfully ban abortions altogether. Right now, many state governments prohibit schools from teaching birth control methods other than abstinence, and with the prevalence of sexual activity in our society (from football half-time shows to prime time television to t-shirts anyone can buy at Abercrombie and Finch), the government MUST recognize that unexpected and unwanted pregnancies WILL occur, and the government MUST take responsibility for them in some way shape or form.
That is your judgement call, no one can be sure of the womans mental, physical or financial situation,in some cases it is self defense and the defense of the rest of her family, if she halready has too many mouths to feed, look at the Sudan and see the babies dying of starvation, a slow death that way is just as bad as an abortion. Because i would not have an abortion myself doesn’t mean I should force a woman to use her body .I say let her God be her judge, not me.
Monavis
Before birth control, the only way was abstainence, there were many unwanted pregnancies, many children were abused because the parents were under a lot of stress coping with children they couldn’t afford or handle, as a result the children were abused; many children were raised by adoptive parents, or had back shed abortions. Just saying no…sounds good, but it doesn’t work most of the time. The people that I know that are most adament about anti choice are also against sex education and birth control. In the case of rape,it wouldn’t matter, A woman would be forced to bear a rapist child.
Monavis
Sorry, I didn’t mean to butt into your private discussion with Newcomb Being.
I am “Pro-abortion” because I think society is better off without unwanted children being born. I am happy that my daughters will have that choice when they are 18 and I would very likely encourage them in that direction if they were to get pregnant earlier than that.
I am not “Pro-life” in part because I think that the rest of us would be better off if murderers, rapists and child molesters were removed from society permanently and eficiently. No eye-for-an-eye here; a cell just big enough for a bed and a toilet is fine by me.
I think “Pro-Choice” is garbage because there are a million things that even you would not allow your fellow man to “choose” to do.
I’ll have to go look up “dissemble” and “subterfuge” so I can refrain but I’ll be happy to start with yours if you can help me.
As Der Trihs pointed out the term “Pro-abortion” is typically not used by those in favor of abortion rights. Also, in the past, we have had guests arrive who would start a thread under a false flag. For example, a rabid anti-semite might use a thread titled “does Abu Mazzen have any hope of controlling militants?” to gather an audience; a few posts in, they reveal their true talking point; that Jews control all the world’s resources with aid from the US.
That’s what I meant by subterfuge. My apologies if I misinterpreted your stance, but I thought I smelled bullshit.
No need to apologize. Thanks for helping me move beyond bomb-throwing as you may have noticed in this thread …
…and speaking of bullshit did you seem my thread in the IMHO section? I’d link to it but it’s probably better I didn’t.