***
I admit it, I am pro-life. Life is good and I like it. If only I could stop there, the Catholic Church and the rest of the religious right would welcome me with open arms, forgiving me for being a misguided non-believer. However, I cannot stop there and this is where I always get in trouble. It also doesn’t help that I do not have any interest in the acceptance of the Catholic Church or the religious right.
To me, being pro-life means that I respect and cherish all life. There are times when the sacrifice of life is necessary in order for another life to survive and that is how nature works. Problems arise when I try to respect and cherish two conflicting lives – the life of a pregnant woman and the potential life she carries. That is where I have to take a step back and support the existing life and the choice she makes over a possibility of life. I have been fortunate enough never to have been forced to make a decision like that regarding my own body but who is to say when circumstances will change? How can I willfully brush aside her intelligence, her experience, and her knowledge of what is best for her situation and force my rosy circumstance on her? Given how my body works, I could have produced at least a dozen healthy babies. Does that mean someone should force me to continue getting pregnant since I seem to be biologically capable of producing healthy life? No, that does not seem right either. So, I cannot in good conscience support forcing another woman to give birth if she is not ready or willing.
I do, however, support all reasonable avenues to reducing the abortion rate here in the U.S. and world-wide. Eliminating it is impossible but improved education and resources have proven to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies while keeping needed medical care for women.
I face the same conundrum when viewing the death penalty or war. On one hand I want a safe society and peace. On the other hand it makes me ill to think that one of the methods used to achieve these ends requires the sacrifice of lives. Again, I feel strongly that education and improved resources will benefit both areas while reducing the number of lives lost.
So, I guess I am a pro-life, pro-choice, pro-education atheist. Oddly enough this particular centrist view often makes me stand out in a crowd – my family and close friends lean toward the right and I am viewed as the liberal left-wing nut and to most others I am viewed as the conservative, uptight right- wing nut. I suppose it is easier to categorize someone than take the time to understand their views. We hear a phrase, jump to a conclusion and pigeon-hole someone before they can get away. It is a shame that I am not a pigeon.
***
You are not alone.
Although I am completely pro-life, I do believe that education and availability of resources is the best way to reduce the number of abortions. IT is sickening that kids are taught that abstinence is the answer without learning any alternatives. It is even more sickening that emergency contraception is not available on the shelves of every drug store and in every hospital emergency room in America. Finally, it is sickening that pharmacists across the country can refuse to provide birth control pills if it goes against their beliefs.
I wish I’d been born a bird instead. I wish we’d all been born birds instead.
I’m mostly with you, but I’m a Christian, rather than an atheist.
Having seen sonograms of my baby at less than 3 months, I can’t accept that that’s not a little human in there. But I can also understand that there are extreme circumstances where it comes down to the life that is, or the life that will be. And since I believe in a loving God, I’m confident that the little baby will end up in a better place anyway.
I couldn’t agree more, though, that better education and better protection are the best way to reduce abortions.
Actually if we are going to be specific, you would clearly fall in line with what is known as, a Libertarian.
http://www.lp.org
I think that the centrist view is fundamentally unsatisfying. Personally, while a Christian, I am adamantly pro-life, anti capital punishment, and anti-war. I don’t think it’s the sort of position one should compromise on, and for me, I would always try to choose the more pacifistic, self sacrificing choice, and I wish others would do the same, though I understand why they frequently do not.
Even as such, I do not think that abortion should be made illegal, and fully agree we should work on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and make adoption an easier option.
Thanks for your post.
Hmmm, how about NEITHER? LOL
Jess
http://www.internet-privacy.pl.tc
Not only are you *not* alone, your stance is exactly the same as everyone with half a brain. Not sure who your friends and family are, but everyone I know wants to reduce abortions, increase education, and favors the mother in extreme situations. In fact, most are fine completely outlawing late term abortions. The abortion issue is only an issue for really strange (super religious) people. The rest of us have other more important issues to think about.
Why not accept both? Instead of having an abortion just remove and freeze, then implant in a woman who can’t conceive. Then everyone is happy and the doctor can collect two checks on the same fetus.
If you follow the ethics in medicine to the letter, it is medically unethical to ever perform an abortion. basically it boils down to this, since science cant agree when life starts, then any procedure that would intervene with the natural process would be unethical.
A wise man once said, with the pleasure of sex comes the possibility of babies. The fact so many do not want to pay for the consequences of their actions is a sad reality of this morally depraved world. If you cannot support a child you have neither the maturity, responsiblity or right to engage in sexual intercourse
Pro life tends to be interpreted as an absolute elimination of all instances of abortion. Many religions (including my own) are also pro life, but make exceptions for rape, incest, or when a mother’s life in a jeopardy.
The catholic church may have an opinion about contraceptives, but you’ll find that religion, in general, tends stay out of the bedroom.
@JP Well said.
“So, I cannot in good conscience support forcing another woman to give birth if she is not ready or willing.”
Actually, you’re missing the point. The baby is already conceived and formed and alive. Just because it’s hidden by some skin and muscle of a woman’s mid-section doesn’t mean it’s not alive. If I crawl in a box, I’m still alive. I’m not Schrodinger’s cat for crying out loud.
You’re talking about the effect instead of the cause. What you cannot do, in good conscience, is force a woman to have sex when you know full well that the effect is a child. Yes, there are measures to prevent conception, but it’s still an effect, 100% or not.
Well said.
I used to agree with the point of view that you should not force someone to endure pregnancy. But I realized afterward that if you allow that, it stands to reason that a parent should not be forced to feed their children either. It is a basic freedom they have (to do nothing that is). So I’m somewhat conflicted about this.
Another point I wanted to make was about this concept of having to choose one life versus the other. I think this scenerio is more rare than people think. Ron Paul mentioned that he was in this line of work for 30 years and never actually saw a case where a mother would lose her life if she did not kill her child. I think this is something people dwell on to make pro-choice seem more like sound judgement.
So am I completely pro-life. maybe not. I see that people are very adament about their “rights” and feel like those rights are being threatened. I do not take that lightly. I try to keep an open mind about it, but I’m not yet convinced of the pro-choice point of view.
In the spirit of open-mindedness, I ask that the pro-choicers out there, don’t let those extreme pro-lifers, with their judgemental ways, make you burn with rage. Likewise, pro-lifers, don’t focus on those awful cases of partial birth abortions. These types of things are rare and just cloud are judgement.
“There are times when the sacrifice of life is necessary in order for another life to survive and that is how nature works. Problems arise when I try to respect and cherish two conflicting lives – the life of a pregnant woman and the potential life she carries.”
How does a baby represent a threat to the mother’s life, such that it must be sacrificed to ensure the mother’s survival? Only when the mother’s life is at risk, as in an ectopic pregnancy (implantation outside the uterus), can the pregnancy be aborted to save the mother’s life (according to the principle of double effect).
full of contradictions, huh?
be like bill maher and be completely pro-death
I’m sure you truly want to be pro-life and pro-choice but you can’t. You betrayed your true beliefs when you referred to the pregnant woman as carrying a “potential life”. If the pregnant woman is carrying a potential life then it makes it easier for people to accept abortion.
The real issue in this debate is simply, when does life begin? You’ve avoided this thorny issue. If the pregant woman wants to have a late term abortion, is that still a “potential life”?
“A wise man once said, with the pleasure of sex comes the possibility of babies. The fact so many do not want to pay for the consequences of their actions is a sad reality of this morally depraved world. If you cannot support a child you have neither the maturity, responsiblity or right to engage in sexual intercourse”
I can agree with this for those that choose to engage in sex but this does not apply to everyone, especially rape victims.
JCE this was a very good post and I agree with your views.
-Yana =)
I’m an atheist, and I believe that abortion is a terrible form of birth control. That being said, at least in the very early stages of pregnancy (maybe the first 8 weeks) that decision should be between a woman and her doctor. All the money being spent to try to outlaw abortion should be instead spent on providing resources for education about birth control and to persuade women to choose not to abort, and then to provide support if she chooses to have her baby. As much as some dogmatic, mostly religious people want to paint the world as black and white, it just isn’t.
its skewed language
consider the converse
which sounds worse?
anti-life
anti-choice
I appreciate your dilemma, one that many of us share. There truly are wingnuts on both sides of this issue, whether all abortions at any time at any cost or no abortions at any time at any cost.
Choose life is a good guideline, even if it leads to different decisions based on the circumstance…
@slonkak. You’re arguing a tautology. Of course a baby is alive. But a fetus is not necessarily a baby. I will grant you that at some point in the third trimester a fetus undoubtedly becomes a baby, at which point its abortion should be considered the taking of a life.
But can a 1-week old zygote be considered a baby? How about a minutes-old fusion of sperm and egg? Is that a conceived and alive baby?
@Mitchell Maybe people just don’t know what “alive” is. Let’s use the dictionary.
Alive – Having life.
Life – The condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.
By that definition (and others in the dictionary), the zygote is alive. So for those who want to keep religion out of it, this commonly accepted definition of “life” proves that the child is alive from the moment of conception. For those who want to put religion in the argument, there never was an argument.
Respecting the life of a woman is not the same as respecting every choice the woman makes. I can tell a woman that I think it’s wrong to kill her unborn baby without wishing her dead in the process.
How many unborn babies die in the name of convenience? “If I have a baby now, it will ruin my life.” No, it won’t! It might make your life less convenient, but it will likely bring many more blessings than curses. But, even if it doesn’t, does the convenience of the woman outweigh the life of the child?
Suppose a woman is married to a rich SOB. It would be very convenient for her to kill him and inherit his money. Doing so would dramatically improve her lifestyle. But, that would be her placing her convenience ahead of his life.
Is that any different than a young girl killing her unborn baby because it will keep her from going to college, or make it hard to find a husband, or keep her from partying with her friends? I don’t really think there is much, if any, difference.
It’s a sad place to be. It’s like Clevinger’s position in Catch22 – you try to be rational, but everybody else works with categories, and prejudices. It’s not a very good position to be in, but it’s the price of actually having your own opinion.
slonkak – basing an argument on a false premise fails. Conception is not life – that little cluster of cells cannot survive without the mother’s body thereby making it (technically speaking) a parasite. (Actually, for anyone who has raised a teenager that whole parasite thing lasts a damn long time.) Presuming ‘life’ begins at conception is, at this point in scientific advances, up to the individual. Not everyone agrees with this position.
For those of you who called me on having to choose between two lives, you are correct. I did not clarify that there does not need to be a threat to the mother’s body to make abortion acceptable in my opinion. I will say that I am never thrilled when abortion is chosen as the method to end a pregnancy, but making abortion illegal (or taking the position that it should be) does default into a threat to many women’s lives. Abortions will not stop so women seeking one will put their lives in jeopardy to terminate a pregnancy. I have a problem with that and that is what I meant by having to choose.
And to the person who likened abortion to neglecting your children the logic does not follow. It is against the law to allow your children to starve. Having an abortion eliminates the need to do this. (Hahaha – I’m kidding!) I think you are implying that abortion is child abuse and you might have an argument there if a first term fetus could actually survive outside of the mother’s body. A child can survive outside of the mother’s body and that does make a difference.
I realize that many of you are going to look for loopholes in my argument and you will find them. I appreciate all the comments and sharing of different viewpoints as it helps all of us think and consider exactly why we believe or think the way we do. My position is one that stems mostly from common sense – yes, there are children born that cannot survive without medical intervention. Should they be put to death? No. Can I give you a medical or legal reason why? Nope.
I am only human…but thank you all for sharing your thoughts and for reading the post. I really do appreciate it.
In all my pondering on this subject, I always ask myself “Is it a human being or not?” So far my answer has always been “yes”, but for some reason I have to keep asking myself the question. Maybe it’s out of disbelief that others cannot draw the same conclusion, or maybe that they just obfuscate their arguments with choice, religion, or scientific justifications.
It is difficult to imagine a society where there are those who were never allowed to be among us. Wrapping your head around that is like imagining a glass of water and you remove 5 percent of the water from random places, and the water just takes up the space that is missing. People you will never meet are now NOT among us. They would have been people you like, people you dislike, poor, rich, all races and religions.
I literally was in my mother’s womb when Roe vs. Wade was decided. In the eyes of my country, I was no longer worthy of protection. My generation and others following have been the victims, my country had a chance to stand up for me and others like me and chose abandonment and death. I am just as much a human being now as I was then.
The real question is when does human life start? Because if anyone can prove to me that the unborn child is not human then I have few qualms about killing it.
An interesting article in today’s Washington Post examines how the religious right (or some portion of that group) is exploring how to reduce the number of abortions here in the US not by overturning Roe vs. Wade, but instead through social programs and other efforts to make that a less appealing option than having the baby. This approach is exactly what many people who are “pro-choice” have been saying for a long time — making abortion illegal will not reduce the number of abortions, just make them dangerous to the women who will still make that choice.
Some Abortion Foes Shifting Focus From Ban to Reduction
JCE,
I think you need to think about the whole “false premise” thing a little bit more. Specifically, the premise that parasites are not alive is fallacious. That’s not a loophole, it is a completely illogical basis for your argument.
Great article Thanks for the information.
I am a Christian man and I am pro-choice. I don’t believe its the right choice my family, but I respect other people’s right to make that choice up to a certain point of the pregnancy.
Having grown up in a very conservative Christian home, I can understand the pro-life folks, what I can’t understand, is why they would be opposed to the morning after pill in case of rape and/or incest.
Interestingly enough you’re viewed as an uptight nut by either side.
Sort your convictions and stick to them. You are no better then anyone else except that you won’t say one way or another about anything. Congratulations on being a wishy washy uptight nut.
Spaceman, my point was that we do not even consider the moral implications in terminating parasites. Parasites are ONLY alive as long as they can feed off the host body.
Also, I think you meant ‘false analogy’. Before you go around beating up on my arguments make sure you understand your logical fallacies.
“Anonymous said…
Interestingly enough you’re viewed as an uptight nut by either side.
Sort your convictions and stick to them. You are no better then anyone else except that you won’t say one way or another about anything. Congratulations on being a wishy washy uptight nut.”
HAHAHAHA!!! I was waiting for this comment! Thanks for making my day. Are my convictions wishy washy or simply common sense?
It’s a very polarised debate today.
The pro-life faction seeks to end all abortions without a single exception – including every methods of contraception that might, under some circumstances, just possibly result in the failure of an embryo to implant.
Due to the political situation – the unviable middle, a court case that they cannot allow to be overturned – the pro-choice side has been forced to support abortion on demand at all stages of pregnency. They even need to fight parential notification, something most of them support, out of fear that it may be the tip of the wedge that pro-life will use to ban more abortions each year until they achieve their goal.
The majority of the population is neither extreme, but these moderates have very little influence or representation. They are not a voting block that can be sought, and while pro-life and pro-choice pressure groups abound there are no moderate groups on the issue.
Some pro-lifers have recently started calling for abortion reduction, as the origional poster here did – suggesting that abortion should be legal, but minimised. This position has faced strong resistance from the influencial leaders though – the FRC, Focus on the Family, the Catholic Church and many protestant churches have denounced this as a form of giving in and tolerating evil. For them nothing less than the total prohibition of abortion will suffice, possibly with just a single extremally narrow and heavily restricted exception for when pregnency would undoubtably result in death for the woman. The abortion-reduction approach is slowly gaining ground, but it’s facing an uphill battle against a pro-life establishment that has spent the last twenty years or so demonising abortion as a terrible, intolerable evil.
The refusal of both factions to compromise intimidates moderates, and both factions regard moderates as traitors (As some previous posters here demonstrate).
Let me start by stating that I am pro-choice; however, the only circumstances which would cause me to even consider having an abortion myself are a pregnancy caused by rape or one that threatens my own life. I firmly disagree with convenience abortions; however, I don’t believe this is an area in which the government should be intervening.
Using the definition of ‘alive’ or ‘life’ is somewhat irrelevant in this argument. Yes, the cluster of cells forming in a womb is alive. But so is a cow, a pig, a chicken, and all those other animals killed for food, sport, or fashion. So are insects and spiders, which most people slaughter without a second thought. The question here is this: when does this cluster of cells become a distinctly HUMAN life? When does consciousness begin? The ability to think? When do defining human traits form inside the womb? When can the fetus begin surviving independently? Is it murder/immoral to pull the plug on a human who can only survive when connected to life-support machinery – after all, the womb is the most primative of life support systems, and a comatose/braindead person always has some fraction of a chance of survival, ie has the potential for life.
And for people using religious arguments – this should not even come into play when determining laws of any kind. Separation of church and state, my friends.
OK, so parasites are alive. I’m glad we agree.
Now I’m troubled that you think a living being doesn’t deserve moral consideration just because it can’t survive when you take it out of its environment.
I’ve never understood either the republicans or democrats stance on abortion and the death penalty. The republicans are mainly pro life and pro death penalty. Yeah, that makes sense…kill them after they have disappointed us. The democrats are pro choice and against the death penalty. Yeah, this makes even more sense, kill them before they even have a chance to live their lives but then when they have proven they are unfit to live in society just keep them locked up in prison.
I’m pro choice, as I believe the woman should have the right to choose what happens to her own body and I’m pro death penalty.
We humans certainly will be the first to either kill or in other ways abort animals if they invade our territory yet we don’t have the sense to regulate our own population. You think the world’s resources are infinite?
“A wise man once said, with the pleasure of sex comes the possibility of babies.”
It’s not that wise a aphorism. Sort of obvious really.
“The fact so many do not want to pay for the consequences of their actions is a sad reality of this morally depraved world.”
Are you saying that just because people like sex, but don’t want to be parents, they’re morally depraved? Moral depravity isn’t limited to sexuality.
“If you cannot support a child you have neither the maturity, responsibility or right to engage in sexual intercourse”
This statement is total bull. I believe that we all have a fundamental right have consensual sex with whoever we want. There are plenty of ways to have responsible sex. And while there may be some people who are not mature enough to raise a child, they may be mature enough for sex.
Well said. It’s nice to know that there’s at least one person out there in the world who’s not going to jump down my throat for having a similar (but respectfully different) centrist view. Thanks for putting this into words.
I have a similar position, in that I’m far more interested in methods that actually reduce abortions rather than pretending that outlawing them will actually do the trick.
I also recognize that women are still treated by a vast majority of people of all cultures as baby factories. As much as we like to feel that we are more enlightened these days, we very much have these prejudices, and they affect how the society systemically support or forgives certain behavior.
Along the same lines, I also recognize that society still, despite drastic changes in our value systems, place a high valuation on virginity of the woman. There appears to be no such pressure on men; in fact there is quite the opposite.
I also recognize that the vast majority of “accidental” pregnancies will result in the woman (or girl) taking the majority (if not all) of the burden of raising the child.
I also recognize that when the father runs away, and you are bitter, lonely and poor, it is extremely difficult to view this 18+ year scenario as a positive experience. Please remember that you have to face a child who is 50% his genes; 50% of a inconsiderate loser; enough to remind you everyday who abandoned you.
I personally know of several women who aborted their pregnancies appropriately; they really had no business having a child that early. Some of these women, even when they “thought they were ready” were most certainly not, as evidenced by the extremely poor behavior of their children.
There is this sense that producing children is a somewhat magical and mystical decision process; that one “feels” whether one is ready or not. In fact, there are plenty of practical guides to the extreme difficulties of raising children even under the best economic circumstances and with the best support network.
As such, I’m far less inclined to take the absolute position that once a woman is pregnant, that she should be required, by law, to take the pregnancy to full term.
The abortion would be a shame, but the choice to allow a pregnancy, even by sheer unfortunate luck (”the condom broke” etc.) is far more irresponsible than the abortion itself.
I don’t know, I think you are contradicting yourself a bit..
You say “To me, being pro-life means that I respect and cherish all life” but then you go on to say that you “cannot in good conscience support forcing another woman to give birth if she is not ready or willing.” You see that the moral implication of a woman aborting is the death of an unborn child. This seems to go against your respect and cherish for all life.
By the way, lest you think I’m really a pro-choice wolf in pro-life sheep’s clothing …
The problem with the pro-choice position is that they appeal strictly to the “control of woman’s body” argument.
Many extremely social/political views take on rationale that makes very little sense under scrutiny, and this is one of them.
If there exists technology (and I personally know of researchers that are actively working on various aspects of this) to extract and nurture the embryo to full term without the woman’s body, would the pro-choice camp still want to kill the fetus?
Right now, removing the fetus is still directly connected to killing the fetus, but within 20 to 30 years, it is not likely to be so tightly connected.
What is your position then?
God will take care of the little children. They all go to heaven because they have had no opportunity to sin. We are all BORN as slaves to sin.
If you are able without risking your own life, it is always morally right to give birth and give up for adoption or keep it. If your own life is at great risk, God would rather use a grown woman to do good in the world than to have her die for an unborn child. At least that’s what I think He wants.
I think a majority of people are in the middle somewhere. I just worked as a technician at a pro-life conference, and was exposed to some *very* interesting arguements.
There are videos from it at http://www.lccabc.ca/video
Come at it with an open mind, and I think you’ll be impressed.
Wow…I absolutely love your blog. You were able to put all my thoughts down on paper. I too feel very similar to you and find it hard to answer the question on whether I am pro-life or pro-choice. But thank you…your blog was wonderful!
I’m with you 110% my friend. I hate that abortion HAS to exist, but I’ll defend any woman who has to make that hellish choice. And if we spent more time (and money) educating lil krisjans on how babies are made and how you can prevent that from happening, we wouldn’t have as many abortions going on in this country, either. Don’t believe me? Look at any European country that actually educates it’s young.
Here’s a sticky pickle.
Last year, a premature “baby” was born at 22 weeks, and survived.
In many parts of the world, 22 week old “fetuses” can be terminated.
As successful births occur earlier and earlier in the course of a pregnancy (and of course they will), do we alter the definition of when that blob of tissue becomes a human life?
Hey, I have been saying I am pro-life and pro-choice for years simply because I believe that everyone has the right to make their own choice, but at the same time I would never have an abortion.
Great article, I totally agree with you!
I’m with you. I’m also an athiest, but I don’t like how people judge me when I tell them that….so now I tell them I’m a Humanist. I kind of just found out about this last week when I read an article about some buses in DC that had a secular message on them…funded by a humanist group from the area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism_(life_stance)
Cheers!
It seems like a lot of us agree that abortions for convenience shouldn’t be. And that contraception, supportive communities and education all help greatly. And that rape, incest and rare things like ectopic pregnancies should be the only reason for abortion. How do we feel about accountability? what if abortion was only legal for women who filed police reports or had proven lethal pregnancies. I’m not saying make it difficult or shameful in any way. on the contrary women in such a situation need community support and protection. How do you all feel about this.
Umm, we all don’t agree on abortion being ok in the cases of rape and incest. This is also out of convenience. Would you punish the victim of a burglary instead of the burglar? No. So why are you punishing one of the victims (yes, there are two, the mother and the child) of rape or incest? It doesn’t make sense.
As for accountability, any woman who has an abortion will always be accountable in their mind. Lots of people try to forgive themselves for doing this, but they never forget.
“As for accountability, any woman who has an abortion will always be accountable in their mind. Lots of people try to forgive themselves for doing this, but they never forget.”
And really, isn’t that hell more than enough? Why do people feel a need to persecute them?
“And really, isn’t that hell more than enough? Why do people feel a need to persecute them?”
Because that “hell” doesn’t bring the baby back to life. The persecution doesn’t either, but some might argue that the persecution of one may save the lives of many.
I’m a little lost on how your position is unique. I don’t know anyone who’s in favor of more abortions – everyone on all sides wants to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, the dispute is whether to make them illegal.
And everyone who is against the death penalty and war is also in favor of peace and security. We just believe that war and capital punishment do nothing to further those goals.
Also, “pro-life” is a meaningless term – these people are actually “anti-choice”. With the exception of the mentally unstable EVERYONE is pro-life. The debate is over who gets to define when life begins – the woman who is pregnant or the state.
I think people who are pro-choice argue that “when does life begin” is an unanswerable question, and thus should be left to the conscience of the individual.
“spaceman said…
OK, so parasites are alive. I’m glad we agree.
Now I’m troubled that you think a living being doesn’t deserve moral consideration just because it can’t survive when you take it out of its environment.”
Like a tick, for example? Do you think ticks deserve moral consideration just because it can’t survive when you take it out of its environment?
This was not an argument I was making and I cannot make morality judgments for everyone.
@Mark Fradl and thus should be left to the conscience of the individual.
Do you really want your conscience to bear the thought that you may have made the wrong decision, and that this tiny decision may have ended a life?
@JCE Do you think ticks deserve moral consideration
This is where religion comes into play because moral considerations distinguishing humans from ticks are because of the belief that humans have souls and other forms of life do not. So, if this article is not about religion, then we should leave “moral considerations” out of the discussion since that only goes down one road.
Well said.
Persecution?! I’m just saying What if people were reproductively responsible. Oh, you weren’t? sorry no abortion, but lots of support for you. Oh, you were raped? That’s horrible? We’re ashamed that we failed to protect you. how can we all help you? Abortion? That’s serious, but we understand. Fill out this paperwork, don’t perjure yourself, we’ll protect you and put the bastard to hard labor in Antarctica after we castrate them. No the paperwork isn’t because you were bad. It just does away with convenience abortions, and makes us all responsible. We don’t want this creep to keep raping people, so in your time, submit the police report so we can get them.
“Do you really want your conscience to bear the thought that you may have made the wrong decision, and that this tiny decision may have ended a life?”
Tiny decisions end lives every day. What baffles me is how someone can be all for capital punishment for the abortion doctors, while preaching that all live is sacred.
Apparently only sacred until it comes screaming into the world. And for the right-wingers who fear a socialist state, it is socialist states who determine a woman’s right to choose. Try reading a history book instead of picketing at clinics. I’m out, bitches. =j
@Spyder Tiny decisions end lives every day.
Right, so why add more life-ending decisions to the list?
What baffles me is how someone can be all for capital punishment for the abortion doctors, while preaching that all live is sacred.
You know as well as I do that those are views of extremists. I thought we’ve already weeded out those people from this discussion.
Frankly, I’d place you as a reasonably standard pro-choicer with very little pro-lifer in you – at least as the terms are defined politically around here (UK). Very, very few pro-choicers think that people going out and having abortions is a good thing. Even if you believe the foetus has no intrinsic value (as I do), it’s a pretty unpleasant thing to go through. We do, however, think that people being /able/ to go out and have abortions is a good thing, since the alternatives are often so much worse. Having an abortion is better than dying, carrying your rapist’s child, living a life of poverty, being disowned or being forced to give up college, but it’s pretty obvious it would have been far better to have known about condoms in the first place.
The “life” debate gets annoying fast because different people use different definitions of the word. Some people use (or imply others are using) a definition that boils down to “made of living tissue”. This fails miserably in determining something’s value, since while by that definition a foetus is alive from conception, so are the sperm and egg that made it. Others use “possesses a soul”, which is a valid definition but doesn’t really work when you’re debating someone who denies the soul’s existence. The milestone I use is sentience – something is alive when it’s aware of itself. Going by what we know about the relationship between consciousness and the brain, this means a foetus isn’t “alive”, a baby is, and there are various degrees of “life” in between.
To everyone talking about pregnancy as a sort of natural punishment for promiscuity: the punishment really, really doesn’t fit the crime. Read the possible consequences I listed in my first paragraph. Does this seem appropriate for a single stupid mistake that hurt nobody? This assuming it was partially the girl’s fault, and not just a matter of the condom breaking, the pill being forgotten, or the other girlfriend being discovered.
Putting the baby up for adoption sounds like a wonderful idea, until you realise that adoption services are overstrained even now. If abortion were outlawed, they would collapse completely. There wouldn’t just be more unwanted babies than prospective parents, there would be more unwanted babies than wanted babies.
Oh, and to everyone talking about late-term abortions: there are a total of two clinics in the US that handle late-term abortions. Neither of them operate unless the mother’s life is in danger. They shouldn’t be massively important to the debate.
@Fafnir The milestone I use is sentience – something is alive when it’s aware of itself. … a foetus isn’t “alive”, a baby is
That’s just wrong. Have you ever seen a baby discover his hands and rediscover them every 5 minutes? Babies are not aware of themselves at all, and thus by your definition have no intrinsic value.
It’s amusing to hear someone write about the church saying out of bedrooms – tell that to a gay or lesbian or bisexual person and see the response you get. Control of sexuality and control of procreation have been christian obsessions for a while.
I don’t get this “pro-life except for rape or incest” hypocrisy. If it’s a human and it’s wrong to kill it then it’s wrong all the time. I think that people exclude rape and incest because they can viscerally imagine what it’s like to carry a baby you got that way but that most people will go along with their being judgemental of women who had sex and didn’t want to become pregnant.
A woman’s body is not owned by the state and she cannot be forced to incubate a fetus that she does not want. Period.
As a couple of people have pointed out, virtually everyone you ask is against very late term or partial birth abortions. Most people believe that ending the life of a fully developed, unborn baby that could survive outside the womb is wrong.
But this is not a “fringe case” in the real debate. This is key. A person who is against abortion looks at this case and asks, “If abortion were right at any point in the development of a baby, at what point does it become wrong?” Finding no logical point to make such a distinction, the person might conclude that life is life. That it all starts at conception.
As there is no need for abortions, ya would think the Pro-Life people would embrace the gay and lesbian communities. =P
great post – you said everything that really needs to be said in this discussion. It’s about making a choice that MAKES SENSE.
An interesting thought I had was, if pro-lifers love life so much, are they all vegetarians? Do they ever eat chicken abortions?
Great article! Especially the very last sentence!
As one who is pro-life, right wing, Christian who is pigeon-holed in to the typical less-than-intelligent / uninformed / unthinking / uncaring / religious nut-case by the left-wing, I very much AGREE with you!
I, like you, also don’t appreciate being “pushed into a box”.
As it turns out, your discussion of the two conflicting lives seems VERY pro-life to me! (as promoted by the National Right to Life..) The fact of the matter is that this situation is an incredibly small percentage of abortions performed.
Just doing a cursary google search indicated that 93% of abortions are performed are for social reasons. I will give you an abortion for rape / incest / endangering the mother, if we can do something to prevent or stop the other 93% of abortions done out of convenience…
It sure seems to me that more often than not, as you seem to imply, if two sides of an “emotional” issue can can stop being so polarizing, there is certainly common ground.
Thank you for your thoughts!
Where’s the conundrum?
Is the fetus alive?
Yes.
Is the fetus human?
Yes (it’s not a dog, rat, whale, hippo, etc).
Has it committed any sort of capital crime?
No.
The killing of an innocent human life is wrong.
I think you’re mixing up arguments here with the “Should I force women to keep getting pregnant?” line.
Not all pro-lifers are against contraceptives. In fact, I’d venture to say that most non-catholics who are pro-life are also pro-contraceptive.
What you need to ask is, does one human have the right to decide to end another human’s life?
I would say that yes, sometimes we do.
But the reasons given for most abortions (convenience, economics, etc) are as morally reprehensible as it would be to end my grandfathers life because of convenience or economics.
I’m not going to read any of the comments because I’ll get too worked up. Quite simply, my wife would be dead and my 2 children would be motherless if abortion were illegal. Her pro-life (in the political sense) doctor said that termination was the only option or she would be dead within the week. The fetus at this point was not viable outside of the mother which means it’s not a life to be valued at the same level as the mother’s.
If you oppose abortion, you are a proponent of the murder of my wife and I’d like to have a private conversation with you in a dark alley somewhere.
Thank you for your post – it describes pretty much how I feel about the topic.
I am pro-life – but that doesn’t mean that in the choice between mum’s life and the life on an unborn baby, I would choose anything but the life of the mum. That’s got to be the way – and I think most reasonsable people see that as the only reasonable choice.
Of course the biggest problem is when killing an unborn baby is a lifestyle choice and not a medical decision. In my mind, the decision about possibly having a baby is made when you decide to have sex – not 9 months later. I guess some will see that as extreme, but in my mind I’ve always thought that if I wasn’t prepared to have a baby then I shouldn’t go ahead and enjoy intimacy with another. Most of the time, with contraception, that only has a small chance of occuring, but it’s a conscious decision I make at that point.
Thank you again for sharing.
pro life or pro abortion…. my stance is we will have to worry about over population… and the fact that there are many kids that are being neglected that are already here… if you really want to make a difference, help take care of them… if the amount of determination displayed by both sides was refocused on existing kids, it would make a sizable impact. and we need to promote safe sex, people are going to have sex, despite how the churches might feel. the spanish population is growing out of control because of the catholic views
dear all, sorry but writing an uninformed opinion on the internet doesn’t make it true…
How about being pro-abortion? Abort every thing that doesn’t have a parent willing and able to keep the kid from being a serious criminal?
Incidentally, being pro-abortion wouldn’t stop you from supporting a woman’s right to choose based on a higher priority for individual rights — but it would suggest ready availability of abortion services as a social policy.
Just a question.
Note — legalized abortion is correlated with a reduction in crime. (Freakonmics)
@slonkak That’s just wrong. Have you ever seen a baby discover his hands and rediscover them every 5 minutes? Babies are not aware of themselves at all, and thus by your definition have no intrinsic value.
Nope, I’m pretty sure babies are sentient. What you’re referring to is the fact that they don’t have much short-term memory and they aren’t quite sure what their senses do yet, but that’s separate. The brain is fully developed by the third trimester or so – all that happens after that is making connections inside the brain.
Put it like this. Imagine your memory was wiped completely blank. You can’t remember your name, you can’t even remember what a name is, you can’t remember the idea of remembering things. You’ve lost all your vocabulary and all grasp of the concepts it represented. For good measure, let’s say you also became a synaesthete, so you’re hearing colours and feeling smells. Your new senses are completely alien. You can relearn everything given time, but right now you’re pretty much clueless. Are you still self-aware? I’m pretty sure the answer is yes – our consciousness is more than just our memories. Hence I believe a baby is sentient.
And to the guy who equated supporting abortion with supporting his wife’s murder: there was a nine in ten chance your wife would have been aborted naturally, in the womb, within the first ten days of pregnancy. The egg would just have failed to implant in the uterus. Her mother would never even have known she was pregnant. And that’s not to mention the fact that if either her mother or her father had changed their routine by so much as a millisecond on the day of conception, a different sperm would have reached the egg and your wife would have been a different person. Long story short: there’s a pretty big difference between dying and between never coming into being in the first place, and that means there’s a pretty big difference between murder and abortion.
Destruction of innocent life is a violation of natural law. It is not potential human life. It is human life. Is it potential life because it depends on a host, mother? How is a born baby any different? Would you kill a born baby?
You cannot be pro-choice and pro-life. Being pro-choice means asking what the choice is between, life and death. Unnatural death is not pro-life.
Human life. No question about it. And it happens over 1,200,000 times a year.
So, if the baby is not able to survive outside the mothers stomach, without the aid of a machine, then it is okay to abort it?
If that is so, then why do we keep all the elderly and sick and crippled around? Why don’t we just kill them all off? It would make things a lot easier for us normal people, right? Shouldn’t we have that “choice”?
If a woman’s body is hers to control and she becomes pregnant when she has no desire to be pregnant she has abdicated her control.
Women cannot have it both ways. Either it’s your body girls and you control it, meaning you use excellent birth control including the little word “NO” or you do not control it.
You can’t go about screeching about your rights when you do not take responsibility for yourself.
I am a single mom who became pregnant due to being careless. My child is a university grad now. Best experience ever.
UMMMMM I would like to point out that the Catholic Church, believe it or not, says abortion is OK if the mother’s life is in danger. Read the freaking Catechism of the Holy Catholic Church.
Can you please point out the paragraphs that explain this? The section on abortion, paragraphs 2270-2275 do not allow abortion. http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a5.htm#2270
What you said about being seen as conservative by some and liberal by others epitomizes the complete absurdity of this argument by the “religious-right”.
They make it seem as if the battle is between Unequivocally pro-life and any choice. That clouds what the real battle is. As democrat and republican, left and right – this here is a battle of Pro-Life and Pro-Abortion. In the middle is a woman’s right to chose.
Don’t let them bewitch you into believing you are either against abortion or you want to murder babies – because that type of idealistic framing is why America has one of the worst education systems, highest divorce rate, and worst health on this planet. People will believe whatever is said to them – and however it is presented; without question.
10% is what you say, and 90% is how you say it.
slonkak,
you are so misguided and misogynistic if you see a woman’s body as just “..some skin and muscle..” She is a human being; a FULLY DEVELOPED human being who is carrying the another developing human being inside of her. Believe it or not, this is not a passive exercise and it takes up a lot of her energy and mental capacity. There are so many things that can go wrong during the gestation process and the inter play between her body and the one developing inside her, that you have to trust her with it’s care and development. It’s HER responsibility. By this, I mean, ONLY she has the ability to respond to the developing person’s needs. If at some point she can no longer respond, it’s HER body and she has to make the decisions about what to do. If you can’t trust her with the prenatal care decisions, how are you going to trust her with the post natal ones?
Wow legal accountability/responsibility seems like an actual viable compromise, but you wont get anyone to even address it because the so called pro choice side knows that education wont really take care of the 93% of convenience abortions. Democrats know that the only way they can keep down the ethnic and lower class populations is to keep abortion legal, and the only way to do that is to let rich bitches have their convenience abortions without accountability.
This isn’t about keeping white men from telling me what to do with my body, or Dems would call themselves anti control. It truly is about pro flippant choice and population control. However, if they were limiting adult populations targeting and killing off non whites in the same percentages it would be acknowledged as the unconstitutional genocide it is.
I dare any of you to even consider and discuss legal accountability! No? then genocide is on your hands.
It seems like a lot of us agree that abortions for convenience shouldn’t be. And that contraception, supportive communities and education all help greatly. And that rape, incest and rare things like ectopic pregnancies should be the only reason for abortion. How do we feel about accountability? what if abortion was only legal for women who filed police reports or had proven lethal pregnancies. I’m not saying make it difficult or shameful in any way. on the contrary women in such a situation need community support and protection. How do you all feel about this.
I’m just saying What if people were reproductively responsible. Oh, you weren’t? sorry no abortion, but lots of support for you. Oh, you were raped? That’s horrible? We’re ashamed that we failed to protect you. how can we all help you? Abortion? That’s serious, but we understand. Fill out this paperwork, don’t perjure yourself, we’ll protect you and put the bastard to hard labor in Antarctica after we castrate them. No the paperwork isn’t because you were bad. It just does away with convenience abortions, and makes us all responsible. We don’t want this creep to keep raping people, so in your time, submit the police report so we can get them.
Beargulch – the idea of using resources and ‘education’ to ‘persuade women not to have an abortion’ is repulsive to me. We have plenty of service providers already doing just that – they are usually under the umbrella of church groups – although they keep this hidden until you are in their clutches and then they bring out the emotional artillery that cements your guilt about even considering ‘killing your unborn child’. Fuck! The idea makes my stomach churn because young women are often critically illiterate and cannot tell emotive, religious, non-scientific bullshit from logic and fallacy and dominant Christian ideology at the best of times – let alone when they are scared and alone and vulnerable to these arseholes on ego-trips who think they are saving humankind.
Councelling services are already provided through Planned Parenthood (if you are in America) and they use non-emotive, psychological testing to make sure you know the consequences and the repercussions of the decision you are about to make – whether it be to go through with the pregnancy or not. Other people’s religions and personal world-views should not enter into any woman’s decision to have or not have a baby – to abort or not to abort.
JCE – you really opened up a sideshow here!! Where did all these freaks preaching “all life is sacred” and “suffer the little children” come from anyway? Do people surf the net all day to find abortion arguments they can crash?
Jeez.
(And to make it worse…now I’m one of them!!!)