Pro life or Pro choice

I wouldn't think a generalization like that would have to be supported. Really? Certainly you would agree that when people do force their views upon others it doesn't go well.

Depends on what they're disagreeing with. I believe that just with any rights of expression and free practice, when one group begins to interfere with other's rights, then the line has been crossed. Should we do a WWII history lesson in the middle of an abortion thread?

Can't believe that someone disagreed with basic human rights. Well, yes I can.

 

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And people have the right to be stupid. And greedy. And lusty. And they have the right to follow up on thoughts that pop up in their mind. And they have their right to not be discerning.

And, of course, they have the right to determines what happens with their own bodies.

 

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The Difficult Proposition

Which comes back to a core argument of the pro-life faction. To them, a woman determining what happens inside her own body and choosing to terminate a pregnancy violates the rights of the fetus to govern its own body.

Yet that is a difficult proposition that leaves a basic question unanswered:

• What is a pregnant woman's status as a human being?​

What is unique about the decision to terminate a pregnancy, compared to getting a tattoo or dyeing one's hair, is that the fetal "human" exists inside another human being's body. This is an aspect that the pro-life argument seems uncomfortable addressing. It is my belief that even if we concede the life-at-conception argument, we must still reconcile this question, lest we relegate women to the status of the proverbial reproductive factory. I am aware that pro-life advocates loathe that idea, and consider the baby factory point hyperbole, but in the end it is a necessary outcome of the life-at-conception argument against abortion; it must be resolved in order to legitimize the life-at-conception anti-abortion argument.

But, as far as the United States is concerned, the supreme law of the land does not recognize the life-at-conception argument as a viable consideration:

Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.

(Blackmun)​

____________________

Notes:

Blackmun, J. "Opinion of the Court". Roe v. Wade. January 22, 1973. Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School. February 3, 2012. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html

 

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I think you mean the anti-choice crowd, there.

You know, as opposed to the "pro-murder" crowd?

I guess the implication is the he's not against "any and all" murders? I'd love to hear exactly which baby murders are okay in his book.

 

My first experience with abortion came at 14 years old, albeit in second-hand fashion. The girl I had been dating for a few months (take "dating" with a grain of salt; I was 14, after all, which basically meant we were humping in her mom's basement three times a week) revealed to me that her last boyfriend had gotten her pregnant, and she had chosen to terminate the pregnancy. The decision still troubled her, and several times I sat with her while she tried to reconcile her regret with the knowledge that she simply wasn't in any position to have a child at that point in her life. I certainly didn't know yet all that I would about abortion, but it bothered me, and it still does. It doesn't feel "right," if that makes sense.

But I also understand that if she had taken the pregnancy to term, her life would have been turned upside down. For many girls, pregnancy simply isn't an option at that age. Not without derailing their entire lives, perhaps irrevocably.

But I don't want to turn this into an appeal to the pro-lifer. I believe the mother should be given priority in all cases, at all times, as the fetus is growing inside her body. The comparison to slavery that I've read here and elsewhere does not apply, because in no situation has a slave ever been a physical part of its master's body. The mother-child dynamic is entirely unique, and should be treated as such. Once the child is born and lives in society, then society may have a say in what can and cannot be done to the child, but while that child is still in the womb, it is no one's say but the mother's.

 

In this world, those who pay, get to have the say.

Why do you like this principle in some cases (when it suits you), but not in some other cases (when it suits someone else)?

 

Some people actually make a living as caricaturists ...

 

I haven't piped in here, because I don't really care. My children are out of college and happily in the workforce. They are martial arts experts, and are well adjusted.
Thank you all for maintaining the proper behavior while that was going on, to allow that to occur. I am finished here on this subject.

 

Then the system of compulsory education and the judicial/penal system need to be abolished, since they clearly interfere with those rights.

Apathy - letting people "do with their bodies" as they please - has disastrous results from which everyone suffers.

 

How so? And I don't mean give me some run-around about how apathy as a general principal is bad for society--I mean explain to me how allowing for women to have abortions has had disastrous results from which everyone suffers.

 

Beliefs or behaviors that are increasingly frequent become the new standard of normalcy, regardless of what the beliefs and behaviors actually are.

And people have to align themselves with whatever the standards of normalcy are, or they suffer isolation and expulsion from society and worklife.

Via this, a lot of harm gets done.


So, for example, it becomes the norm to have sex even when one doesn't desire to have children, or it becomes the norm to eat meat or drink alcohol.
People who don't go along with these norms, risk expulsion from society, given that they don't fit in.
Acting in line with those norms, however, brings about many undesired consequences that bring a lot of suffering - from drunk driving to unwanted pregnancies.

Apathy - letting people "do with their bodies" as they please - has disastrous results from which everyone suffers.

A welcoming attitude toward abortion is just one example of this apathy.

If you have no problem living in a society where people feel no scruples over harming and killing themselves or others for the sake of pleasure then any discussion on this topic is rather meaningless ...

 

When has it not been the norm for people to have sex despite not wanting children, or eat meat and drink alcohol? Are you on rumspringa, or something?

Your slippery-slope theory is based on the false premise that these things are somehow new developments to society, and therefore holds no water. And just for the record, both teen pregnancy rates and drunk driving-related deaths in the US are down.

Quite the non-sequitur there.

Also, you ducked the question. In what way does abortion have disastrous impact on society, and how does it make everyone suffer?

And I never said I had no problem with abortion. I said quite the opposite, in fact. Being pro-choice does not have to mean one is comfortable with the idea. It just means that one puts the priority on the mother's right to choose what happens to and within her body.

 

It depends on what you count as "new" and in what geographical location.
If you only look at the last 50 years or so, or whether you observe a few centuries; whether you only consider the US, or also the rest of the world.

This is one of those value-based facts that one either acknowledges, or doesn't.

Eventually, it means precisely that.

No, it means that the scope of what is considered valid focus on the matter is narrowed down to a few factors that seem convenient enough to consider.

 

This is beside the point. I specifically said I was not interested in how apathy as a concept was harmful to society; I said I was only interested in your assertion as to how legal abortions are a threat to society. I'm not going to allow you to cloud the issue with this subterfuge.

In order to acknowledge a value-based fact, one has to assign a value to it. That you have now twice failed to do so indicates that you can't actually substantiate your claim that allowing abortions can/will/does have a disastrous impact on society.

In other words, you said it for effect.

Of course it doesn't. I'm pro-choice and have never been comfortable with the idea of killing a fetus. You don't have to like something to believe it is the right thing to do.

So I ask again: what are the factors we're not considering? What are the factors we ignore on the basis of convenience?

 

Of course you do. Or you are confused.

If you think it is normal and healthy to engage in an activity the natural consequences of which you know but do not want, then there isn't much I can say.

 

That's absurd. I don't like the idea of being sedated, having my chest cut open, my ribs pulled apart, and my heart stopped; that doesn't mean I wouldn't let it happen if I needed a bypass.

Translation: "I can't answer the question, so I'm just going to pretend it isn't worth answering."

You lose, honey.