I’m pro-choice because I’ll be damned if I’m going to let anyone force me to experience nine months of pregnancy and subsequent childbirth because they think I’m a bad girl who must face the consequences of my “mistake.” It makes no difference to the people who would force me to be pregnant that:
- the condom may have broken,
- my birth control pills may have failed,
- I may have been young and careless and decided that yes, just this once, my boyfriend could use the withdrawal method,
- my abusive husband may have pressured me to have unprotected sex when we do not have the means to support another child,
- I may have been raped,
- I may have attempted to get emergency contraception but I couldn’t find a doctor and/or pharmacist to give it to me in time,
- I may have a medical condition, such as preeclampsia, that makes pregnancy and/or childbirth a risk to my health.
I’m pro-choice because a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy should be entitled to decide what is best for her based on her particular circumstances. I’m pro-choice because although I have never had to face an unwanted pregnancy, millions of women do every year, and the possibility that I might in the future is always there. I’m pro-choice because I don’t think that women who have unwanted pregnancies are bad people who deserve to be punished. I am pro-choice because I understand that some women have less privilege than others — less money, less education, less family support.
I’m pro-choice because when a man makes one of those “mistakes” that leads to an unwanted pregnancy, he doesn’t have to wear a sandwich board around for the next nine months that says: “I don’t want a child, but I knocked somebody up. Ask me how!”
I’m pro-choice because it’s the pro-choice movement, not the so-called “pro-life” movement, that genuinely strives to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies by providing accurate sex education and access to birth control and women’s health services.
I’m pro-choice because my body and my life are mine and nobody else’s.
I am pro-choice for the following reasons:
1: Most Americans recognize that there is a moral and ethical distinction to be made between the termination of a pregnancy and the wanton killing of a living, breathing human being.
2: Most Americans know that while a woman’s fertilized egg or blastocyst is genetically “human,” the resemblance to a person ends there.
3: The vast majority of abortions take place within the first trimester of pregnancy, and most American still prefer that women still have that option.
4: The most emotional arguments against abortion hinge on religious beliefs: That a human pregnancy is somehow “sacred” or that a fertilized egg is imbued with some kind of “soul” or other supernatural characteristic. Since such relgious beliefs vary widely from person to person, all I can suggest is that pro-lifers are welcome to conduct their own reproductive lives as their conscience and religious beliefs dictate. They have absolutely NO right to demand that others do the same.
5: I consider a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy absolutely FUNDAMENTAL to her right to self-determination. PERIOD.
Thank God for abortion.
Without it we would not have
many of the vaccines that are
mandatory for our children.
Anybody hear that? What?
Oh, hypocrite. yea I heard that.
I’m not pro-choice. I listen to and understand that perspective. I empathize. But I’m not convinced abortion is the right answer.
–I feel unborn women deserve rights also.
–I believe men must be held responsible and more accountable for their actions for unwanted pregnancies.
–I believe churches should do less preaching against abortion and start funding and operating more maternity centers.
–I believe taxes should be lower so that parents may keep more of their money and thereby avoid daycare if so desired. (That makes way more sense than offering childcare tax credits/deductions.)
–Universal Healthcare for young children should be seriously considered.
–Adoptions should be less expensive.
–Finally, abortion should be rare. A last resort to save the life of the mother.
Abortion always ends a life. Our society should be one that welcomes and protects our most innocent life. A selfish, intentional abortion is the worst sort of child abuse.
Jay, you’ve commented on a fairly old post and on a blog that I’m not currently using (I’m in the process of switching from Blogger to WordPress), and I don’t know if you’ll return to read this response, but here goes.
The problem with so-called “pro-lifers” is that they (you?) only care about the life of the fetus. We will have to agree to disagree about whether or not an unborn person has Constitutional rights, but even if you do believe that the unborn have rights, how can you possibly believe that they have more rights than a born, walking, breathing, talking person?
Pro-lifers don’t just believe that fetuses have rights, they believe that the fetus’ rights are greater than the woman’s rights. As a woman, I find that belief sickening.
“The problem with so-called “pro-lifers” is that they (you?) only care about the life of the fetus.”
Lots of pro-lifers care about the women as well - click here for an example. No one is trying to kill the women, of course, so there is something different at stake.
“Pro-lifers don’t just believe that fetuses have rights, they believe that the fetus’ rights are greater than the woman’s rights. As a woman, I find that belief sickening.”
I think you are mixing up your “rights.” The unborn have a right to life. The woman has lots of rights, but they shouldn’t include the right to pay someone to crush and dismember her unborn child.
FYI - Based on Planned Parenthood’s own research arm, 56% of abortions are done to humans conceived while the parents used birth control. It isn’t a magic cure-all.
I’m not mixing up anything. Women have a right to bodily autonomy. Even if you believe that a fetus has a right to life, why does that right trump a woman’s right to control what happens to her own body? Can you name even one other instance in which this happens? Are you familiar with the expression “your rights end where mine begin”? If I have a child who will die unless he gets a bone marrow transplant, the government doesn’t force me to do it. I have the right to decide whether or not I want to undergo an invasive procedure like that, even if someone will die if I don’t do it.
Don’t trivialize what a woman goes through when she is pregnant and when she gives birth. It can be life-threatening. The Supreme Court just upheld a ban on a rarely used procedure that provides for no exception for the health of the mother. Ever hear of preeclampsia or HELLP syndrome? Ever hear of fetuses that are so malformed that they will die within weeks or months of birth? Why should women in these situations be forced to carry their pregnancies to term, putting their own health and lives at risk, because some people think late-term abortions are icky?
I have no idea what point you’re trying to make regarding contraception. No, contraception is not a 100% guarantee against pregnancy — that’s why abortion is necessary.
By the way, the topic of this post is “why I am pro-choice,” so unless you have anything to say on that subject, please refrain from commenting any further. You can discuss all those horrible women who pay people to crush and dismember their unborn children on your own blog.
Pro-lifers don’t just believe that fetuses have rights, they believe that the fetus’ rights are greater than the woman’s rights. As a woman, I find that belief sickening.
I find the belief that the right of the woman to a stretch-mark free existence trumps the right of her baby to be alive to be sickening, revolting, and worthy of the highest amount of contempt.
Your right to swing your fist ends at my face. That doesn’t mean that my rights trump yours: rights are NEVER just “rights,” they are, logically and linguistically, rights TO something.
I just love how you reduce a woman’s desire to avoid nine months of pregnancy and subsequent childbirth, with all its attendant health risks and financial burdens, not to mention the burden of raising a child for eighteen years, to some vain desire not to have stretch marks. It speaks volumes about how much you actually care about women. Sad, especially for someone who purports to be a feminist.
An abortion is certainly a health risk to the fetus. That’s the entire point, in fact. There is no way that the risks to the mother, in today’s ultra-medically advanced society, can be considered to be on the level of ending her life.
There is NO need to raise a child for 18 years if one does not want it. Ever heard of adoption?
I must conclude, then, that in weighin health risks (where the fetus certainly wins), and in your other concerns (adoption takes care of them) that the only reason to abort is to avoid stretch marks.
1.3 million abortions per year - it’s not all about her life or her health. In fact, 97% of abortions are for reasons that adoption takes care of or for vanity. Sorry, the stats aren’t on your side.
I care about women, but that doesn’t mean that I condone murder.
“There is no way that the risks to the mother…can be considered to be on the level of ending her life.”
Your ignorance is showing. That statement is simply false. Women’s lives can indeed be put at risk during pregnancy and childbirth. Their health can be put at great risk as well. There are all sorts of medical conditions a woman can have that put her health and/or life in danger if she carries a pregnancy to term. Ever heard of preeclampsia? Think a woman’s life is never in danger due to pregnancy? Read this man’s story. The comments are enlightening as well.
Why is a nearly four month old post of mine all of a sudden generating new comments? This post was about why I’m pro-choice. I have no interest in debating anti-choicers on my blog. As I said before, you can write all about the horrors of women being able to make their own choices about what will or will not be done to their bodies on your own blog. If you feel like debating, I’m sure you can find someone else to take you up on the offer.
To answer your question, if you look at the trackback, Old Ford Road trackbacked and many of us read your post.
If you would like, you can move over to my blog and debate me there.
Only 3% of abortions take place for health or life reasons. The other 97% aren’t justifiable under that theory.
I’m aware of that. I wasn’t arguing otherwise. I was refuting your bogus claim that women’s lives are never at risk from pregnancy and/or childbirth. I’ll take your response as an admission that you were dead wrong.
Thanks for the invitation, but I’m not interested in debating abortion with someone who has clearly already made up her mind. I’m not going to change your mind, you’re not going to change mine, so why bother? There are much more interesting ways that I’d rather waste my time.
Um… NO, babycakes. Dead wrong? I think not! How about YOU being dead wrong, considering that you think that women ALWAYS abort for health reasons, when statistics show that 97% do it for other reasons?
Face it: abortion on demand is never about the life of a woman. No American law has ever forbidden a woman from seeking an abortion to save her life. So when we debate abortion, we’re debating the “right” to kill your child to avoid stretch marks and morning sickness. I personally would rather be morning sick than to be dismembered or have my brains sucked out, but those are equivalent to you. Which is why we’ll never see eye to eye.
Babycakes?
You said:
That statement is dead wrong.
When did I claim that women ALWAYS abort for health reasons? Oh that’s right — never. I don’t dispute the fact that at least 90% of abortions occur within the first trimester. You think that’s morally wrong, I don’t. End of story.
(If you’re incapable of having a civil discussion and resort to patronizing name-calling, I’ll delete your comments.)
You said,
“with all its attendant health risks and financial burdens, not to mention the burden of raising a child for eighteen years, to some vain desire not to have stretch marks.”
Yeah, sorry, those aren’t going to kill her. Health risks are health risks, life risks are life risks, and we were debating health.
Face it: abortion isn’t about the woman dying. It’s about divorcing sex from its biological purpose - that which has kept our species going for millions of years.
Okay, read slowly, because you keep trying to refute arguments that I’ve never made.
We were discussing the reasons that women have abortions, which includes (among other things) health risks. Then YOU (not me) made the claim that a woman’s life is never in danger from pregnancy/childbirth. I refuted that point, because it’s so obviously wrong.
You apparently missed the point that I was trying to make re: health risks. I’ll say it more clearly so maybe you’ll understand this time: You reduced a woman’s decision to have an abortion to a desire not to have stretch marks, and I pointed out the obvious, which is that stretch marks are not the only downside to being pregnant and/or giving birth. There are also health risks, financial burdens, social circumstances, et cetera. You trivialized all of those significant concerns with your dismissive “stretch marks” comment, which shows just how much you care about the various problems that pregnant women face.
Anyway, I’m glad we’ve finally gotten down to the real issue underlying all abortion debates — you don’t believe people should have sex just for fun, and I do. Perhaps you’ve never had an orgasm?
I don’t care whether or not people have sex for fun. I don’t care if people consume wine for fun (I certainly do!) and not just for the incidental health benefits. I don’t care if people smoke, live beyond their means, or do a great many other things that I personally would not choose to do.
That doesn’t mean, though, that they get to avoid the consequences. If I get cirrhosis of the liver, I don’t get to force someone else to donate a liver to me because, after all, I have the right to drink as much as I want.
Likewise, if you have sex for fun, great. Rock on. When not-fun, albeit logical, events transpire afterwards, though, don’t run around harming other people.
Biology is the one to blame. Yeah, it would be great if humans could have sex for fun without getting pregnant, but we aren’t designed that way. As an avid runner, I wish I could run all I wanted without experiencing fractured bones (had that happen), sprained ankles (not as bad as the fracture, but my body is still screwed up), and muscle soreness. My body wasn’t designed that way, though, and I understand that. I understand that, when I run for fun, I have to a) do my best to avoid spraining my ankles and fracturing my femur again, and 2) if that happens, I have to live with it. My choice to run, my responsibility to deal with the consequences, regardless of whether I was running for joy or away from a psychopath or for health.
Likewise, have as much sex for fun as you want, but, if you get pregnant (and we all know that it’s not the stork), then deal. Don’t kill your child, don’t ask a doctor to pretty please suction its brains out - just deal with it.
I stand by my stretch marks comment. For the vast majority of women, that’s the only long-term physical effect from pregnancy. Abortion is permanent. I would take the claims of women a lot more seriously if 1.3 million women a year weren’t aborting their children. Over half of them don’t even bother to use birth control, so it’s kind of hard to swallow the idea that they really care about their bodies.
Are you implying, with your orgasm comment, that there is an amount of physical pleasure that would cause me to kill my child for it? Isn’t that what abortion amounts to - if you’re really arguing that it’s not about stretch marks, it’s about orgasms - the desire to feel really freakin good and not have to worry about those pesky babies?
Not to be really sarcastic, but most women don’t orgasm from sex. Last time I checked, you can’t get pregnant from a guy going down on you.
Are you even paying attention to your own arguments? How can one read this:
without concluding that you think non-procreative sex is a bad thing? Okay fine, you don’t. You think sex for fun is just fine. It’s just that you think people must deal with the consequences of sex. Aborting a pregnancy is one way to deal with the consequences of sex.
If you get cirrhosis of the liver, you are allowed to seek medical treatment, even though cirrhosis is a consequence of your excessive drinking. Likewise if you get lung cancer from smoking. If you drive 100 miles per hour and don’t wear a seatbelt, society doesn’t say that you just have to “deal with the consequences” of an accident. You’ll be taken to the hospital. If you take every precaution not to injure yourself while running and you nonetheless get injured, you don’t have to lay there with a broken leg, “dealing” with the consequences.
But, by your logic, if I take every precaution not to get pregnant and I get pregnant anyway, I should be forced to carry a fetus for nine months and then give birth. Do you know why we don’t force people to give other people organ transplants, even if that means people will die? Because we don’t tell people what they can and cannot do with their own bodies. Except in the case of pregnancy. In that case, everyone else knows what’s best for a woman and the fetus inside her and they think they should be able to decide what happens to her body.
So, I will continue to have as much sex for fun as I want, taking precautions to avoid pregnancy, but if I get pregnant, I’m not going to remain that way for long. That’s how I intend to deal with the consequences, should I ever be presented with them. My body, my choice.
And I’m not going to judge the woman down the street who chooses to have an abortion, because she might already have all the kids that she can afford, and she might not be able to miss days at work if she needs to stay in bed due to a difficult pregnancy, and she might not be able to afford pre-natal medical care, and she might have a husband who is abusive to her and her children and she’d rather not subject another child to that, and she might be black or Latino and find out that adoption isn’t as simple as some people think it is. I’m not going to judge any woman who has an abortion, because I don’t know what her life is like. I don’t know what her specific circumstances are. I don’t know what health risks she might face if she goes through childbirth. I don’t know what her financial circumstances are. I don’t know if she’s afraid that her husband will beat the shit out of her if he finds out she’s pregnant. I don’t know, but she does. So she gets to choose.
[Side note: Not to be really sarcastic, but last time I checked, "a guy going down on you" is sex.]
You make a VERY common error in logic. You assume that “dealing with the consequences” in every other situation means medical care, but, with pregnancy, means killing another human.
My cirrhosis analogy is actually perfect. If you get pregnant, we don’t say “deal with it” and not give you prenatal care or make you deliver at home or refuse you a C-section if you need one. Likewise, alcoholics get medical treatment.
What NO ONE is allowed to do is to harm another human to ensure that there are no consequences to their actions. An alcoholic may not force another person to donate a liver or a kidney; likewise, a pregnant woman may not kill her fetus.
We give medical care, but we don’t allow you to kill or harm others. Under the abortion theory, extended to every other area of life, the person who drives 100 miles an hour and gets into an accident could harvest organs from some innocent bystander, because it’s not fair to punish him for driving fast. A smoker could harvest lungs from, and leave for dead, any person of his choosing because, after all, harvesting lungs is one way to deal with emphysema.
Saying that abortion is a way of dealing with pregnancy is like saying that running to a no-extradition country is a responsible way of dealing with a jail sentence. It’s also illogical, in that it assumes what it tries to prove (that people are having responsible sex and therefore deserve abortion, because responsible sex includes the right to abort), and, of course, ignores the moral dimension.
My body, my choice.
EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s the fetus’s body, so it’s the fetus’s choice. One cannot make th affirmative choice to die - we don’t allow euthanasia, unless you live in Oregon.
[Side note: Not to be really sarcastic, but last time I checked, “a guy going down on you” is sex.]
So it gets you to the point where you might want an abortion?
Your entire premise is that orgasms and pregnancy are intertwined. Whoops!
Now see what you made me do? This is the pointless debate I was trying to avoid.
I made no error in logic. We have a difference of opinion. I don’t believe that abortion kills a person, and you do.
I’m done.
Okay, I will add something else. You’ve revealed once again that the so-called pro-life position isn’t about saving babies, it’s about sex. It’s about who “deserves” to have an abortion and who doesn’t.
You’ll note that I made no such assumption and made no such argument. You came up with this concept of “deserving” an abortion all by yourself. I believe that every woman “deserves” to be able to choose whether or not to have an abortion, because it is her right to do so. I don’t care how she got pregnant.
You’ve revealed once again that the so-called pro-life position isn’t about saving babies, it’s about sex.
Omigod… wow.
So when we point out that it’s about saving babies, you talk about sex. We respond to the sex issue by pointing out that it causes babies, and all of a sudden, we don’t care about babies and just want to punish people for having sex.
Excuse me, but I have yet to hear about a single pro-lifer who runs around with IVF equipment, getting people who had sex pregnant to “punish” them. If that isn’t happening, I’m not sure how we can be “forcing” anyone to be pregnant or “punishing” them for being pregnant or saying that they don’t “deserve” to not be pregnant.
Believe it or not, a lot of people do change their minds while debating abortion. They tend to be pro-choicers who had never heard the pro-life position articulated before.
Do you believe that a woman who becomes pregnant after a man rapes her should be allowed to have an abortion?
I believe that everyone should have access to Plan B, and I believe that hospitals (and police stations) should be required to offer it to rape victims. If they don’t, I think that hospitals should immediately lose their license to practice medicine and be shut down - i.e. a strong enough punishment to ensure compliance. None of this crap about “referring” to a hospital that has it, or writing a prescription, or sending her to CVS: you offer it to her and put it in her hands. If she flushes it down the toilet, that’s her issue.
Obviously, there’s no good way to answer that questions: either it’s about “punishing” women for having sex (at which point I answer yes, I do agree), or I’m heartless and I don’t care about women, because some form of their consent isn’t even necessary.
Politically, if no abortion ban will pass without that exception, I would prefer it - after all, 25,000 women a year beats 1.3 million.
I can’t help but think that abortion for raped women is a sign that we are failing women. If abortion were not around, you can bet that Plan B would be much more effective. As a society, we expect that women who keep their babies were not “really” raped, which, of course, makes women who are raped want to abort to avoid that stigma. Our child custody laws, in some states, would mandate that the rapist approve adoption. We have excellent medical care but little psychological care. People who would not think twice about going to the hospital for a medical issue would not go to see a psychiatrist.
Incidentally, where do YOU draw the line on abortion? Obviously, there is some point at which you feel that infanticide is being committed - whether it be immediately after birth, after the first trimester, or at some other point.
Okay, I’m trying to decipher your response, but it looks as though your bottom line answer is that yes, you would approve of an exception for women who are raped. I’m not sure how that could be acceptable to you, since you would be condoning baby slaughtering by your own moral standard. (I didn’t ask what was politically expedient, I asked what you believe. Apparently you believe that it’s okay to suck out babies’ brains as long as it’s politically expedient.)
Incidentally, how on Earth can you be an atheist and for an abortion ban? (I didn’t realize that until I just checked the “About” section on your blog. I’ll admit to being surprised to read that you’re an atheist. I won’t even begin to guess how a libertarian can be in favor of government intrusion on this issue.) Are you only opposed to abortion when it’s the icky kind, where they suck the babies brains out during the third trimester? Or are you opposed to it during the first trimester? If it’s the latter, how do you justify that to yourself, as an atheist? In the first trimester, it’s just a clump of cells. It’s not a baby. It doesn’t look like a baby. It has no cognitive functioning whatsoever.
In theory, I’m not sure where I would draw the line as far as when abortion crosses the line into infanticide. I have a huge problem with the fact that abortion is almost always discussed theoretically. Someone will ask whether it would be okay for a woman to have an abortion right up to the moment she’s about to give birth. Of course, this isn’t a real world scenario. Fewer than 1% of all abortions are late-term abortions, and late-term abortions aren’t performed on a whim, they’re performed because the mother’s and/or the fetus’s health and/or life are in danger. (Don’t believe me? Go ahead, try to find a doctor who will perform an abortion in the third trimester just for the hell of it. You can’t. Some women carry dead fetuses to term because they can’t find a doctor who knows how to or is willing to perform late-term abortion procedures.) So while the theoretical example of a woman having an abortion the day before she’s going to give birth — in situations where there is no health risk to her or the fetus — does trouble me, IT NEVER HAPPENS. That’s why I hate it when people discuss abortion theoretically. It’s not theoretical, it’s real, and we should look at what really happens in this country w/r/t abortion. I don’t think the government should be sticking its nose into medical decisions made between a doctor and a patient based on the specific circumstances of the woman’s pregnancy. So, where do I draw the line on abortion? Nowhere. I believe in legal, unrestricted abortion, period.
I agree with you about Plan B — if it were widely and freely available, it would reduce the numbers of abortions. But guess who fights against women’s access to Plan B and other contraceptives? People in the pro-life movement.
I’ve written a series of pro-life posts from an atheist, libertarian perspective.
As a libertarian, I fully believe that people have the right to be alive, free from intrusion from others. When the government ignores abortion, it sanctions the killing of another human. I’m a libertarian, not an anarchist! I don’t think that, under a libertarian policy, we ought to let people harvest organs from those in comas or the mentally disabled, even though that involves the gov’t sticking its nose into medicine.
First off, it’s not a clump of cells. At five weeks after the last period, it has a discernible heart beat. There is also the beginnings of a brain. At that point, women don’t even know they are pregnant.
Second, to answer your question: I’m opposed to abortion at any time after a week or two beyond conception. Mostly, I don’t want women to be harassed because they could be pregnant and not know it yet. I also don’t want women being harassed if they spontaneously abort, which frequently happens. At that point, the twinning process would have occurred; if there were severe genetic abnormalities, the woman’s body would have spontaneously aborted it; and it fits the biological definition of “life.” As the progeny of two humans, it is human; it can get food (arguably, pre-implantation zygotes cannot); it responds to changes in its environment, etc.
As an atheist, I’m a huge civil rights person. I don’t like it that our country used to say that slaves are “human,” but only 3/5th of a “person.” Same argument is used against fetuses - human, but not people. I hate the idea of women as property, to be abused by their husbands; I hate the idea of babies as less than property, to be disposed of at the will of the woman. I hate the idea of coerced abortion, which happens so frequently. I don’t like the idea of giving people basic civil liberties (like life) based on “sentience;” I certainly don’t think that my IQ makes me more entitled to protection than someone in the normal population. (Hey, I’m not Peter Singer.) I hate the idea of trampling on the rights of the disabled, and, in many ways, fetuses are similar.
Being a libertarian means that I don’t want the government intrusion, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think that government has a place prosecuting crime. Infanticide, in my world, is a crime.
One need not be religious to place value upon unborn life. Again, I don’t think that humans have the right to kill each other. As a capitalist, I’m convinced that there are technological solutions to the pregnancy issue (and there are!); women’s unwillingness to use them is not the concern of a libertarian.
Imagine a world in which we take your philosophy to its logical conclusion. If you need help, read anything by Peter Singer. We would value animals more highly than a 7-month old fetus; the mentally retarded would have no rights and could be killed upon the whim of another; we would harvest organs from those who are incapacitated and lack the ability to form sentient thoughts or to express their displeasure at such an act. Parents would have the right to kill their children shortly after birth, because, after all, what does it matter?
After all, at five weeks, the first part of a brain develops. So are we to analyse “how much” brain function is enough to trigger human rights? Or do we leave it at the fact that there IS a brain and refuse to allow women to kill it?
It often shocks pro-choicers to realise how little ground they are really defending with the “blob of cells” argument. That argument, even if accepted, gets them to the point where the woman hasn’t even noticed a missed period.
In short: I don’t believe in distinguishing “humans” from “persons,” and I don’t think that anyone has the right to kill an innocent human. Or, as Ayn Rand said:
“In her 1963 article, “Man’s Rights,” Ayn Rand held a single-tier position. “There are no ‘rights’ of special groups,” she said, “there are no ‘rights of farmers, of workers, of businessmen, of employees, of employers, of the old, of the young, of the unborn.’ There are only the Rights of Man — rights possessed by every individual man and by all men as individuals.”
Uh, I don’t think that’s what Ms. Rand was getting at. As if that even matters though.
Way to convince us, quoting a philosophical hack (and dreadful writer to boot) that virtually no real intellectual, major or minor, has ever ever taken seriously.
Stop. You had me at hello.
But you know, people might think of you as something other than the punchline to a cruel joke if you knew what words like “sentient” even mean.
Lucky for you, there’s Google. So later today when you’re Googling “how to wipe my own ass,” you might want to punch in “sentient” just to see what comes up.
I believe in the U.S. Constitution. I do not believe that a fetus in a woman’s womb has any rights under the Constitution.
When you say that you don’t want women to be “harassed,” that’s an understated euphemism for what we’re really talking about here, which is criminal liability. We’re talking about women being locked up because they “killed another human being.”
I didn’t quite understand what you were getting at before when you said: Face it: abortion isn’t about the woman dying., since I had never argued that in every case of abortion (or even in any more than a small percentage of cases) is the woman’s life in danger. But I get what you were saying now.
Are you under the impression that the only way one could legally infringe upon a fetus’s “right to life” is if the woman’s right to life is being infringed upon as well? Are you under the impression that to infringe upon a Constitutional right there must be a competing co-equal right that is being/would be infringed upon? Because that isn’t true.
You have a 1st Amendment right to free speech. If you make up lies about me and publish them on your blog, the government can infringe upon your free speech rights by forcing you to remove those writings from your blog and by ordering you to pay monetary damages to me for libel. What Constitutional right of mine is being infringed upon? My own 1st Amendment rights have not been violated, yet yours can be violated if you write something libelous about me. Do I have a Constitutional right not to have my reputation harmed that rises to the level of importance of your free speech rights, that trumps your free speech rights?
I have to agree with M.i.M. about your use of the word “sentience.” You compared an embryo of a few weeks old to a mentally disabled person. An embryo of a few weeks old is not sentient. It has no awareness of its own existence. A mentally disabled person most certainly does.
I said a first trimester embryo has no cognitive function, and that is true. There’s scientific disagreement about whether a near-term fetus even has cognitive function. Hell, a newborn baby barely has any cognitive function. The brain stem is formed at around 7 weeks, and activity in the brain stem begins as early as 8 weeks. Nobody has detected any activity in the cerebral cortex (i.e., the part of the brain that controls awareness, thinking, consciousness) earlier than 120 days (roughly 4 months). (And note that “activity” doesn’t mean that it’s fully functional, it means there’s some sort of electrical activity that exists.) If you’re going to use science to make your points, get the facts correct.
If you have a problem with aborting a pregnancy after only a few weeks of gestation, I have no problem with that. If you think it’s wrong to “kill” an embryo, I have no quarrel with you. It’s really simple: Don’t have an abortion. But don’t send me or my doctor to prison because we believe differently. Pro-choice people do not believe that every pregnant woman should have an abortion, we believe that every pregnant woman should have that choice.
1. MiM: If the question is how a person can be libertarian and pro-life, quoting a famous libertarian isn’t a bad idea.
Honey, let’s be clear. I have an engineering degree from a really good school. I’m a law student. Whether or not you want to acknowledge my intelligence, it is there and I use it. Instead of making a bunch of childish, snarky comments that are suitable for the playground, you could respond as to why libertarians should be pro-choice. You could also, instead of making a trailer-trash comment, do something like provide an alternate definition of sentience and argue why it should be applied in the abortion debate.
2. I hate to snit at people, but you don’t understand constitutional rights or legal theory at all. Preventing me from committing libel does NOT infringe upon my First Amendment right, because “free speech” does not encompass libel. There is a subtle but important difference. If the government does not allow me to publish a dissenting view of the new immigration reform bill, it is infringing upon my First Amendment rights, because those rights explicitly encompass my right to criticise government action. When it prevents me from committing libel, it does not TOUCH my First Amendment rights: ergo, your nebulous rights are not being infringed upon.
An analogy: if the government were to prevent me from buying a rifle, it is infringing upon my Second Amendment rights. If it prevents me from purchasing uranium, it is not infringing upon those rights, as uranium possession is not part of the Second Amendment.
3. Aye… don’t know where to start. It is UTTERLY IRRELEVANT if the fetus has constitutional rights. The Constitution limits federal action - both what the federal government can regulate and the powers that it can strip from the states. As there is no constitutional right to abortion (sorry - even pro-choice legal scholars admit that Roe is bad, which is why it’s called “Blackmum’s abortion,”), it is a State issue. States have ALWAYS been allowed to regulate the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens.
Via the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, the appropriate question is to ask whether or not the State’s constitution would prevent the state from regulating abortion. If not, then tough luck - the state is constitutionally allowed to prevent you from having an abortion.
I believe that the only time when it is acceptable to take a human life is when the life of another human is in danger or that human has killed another person. It is not a Constitutional issue - the Founders would have approved of hanging for some forms of robbery - but is nevertheless how most people think our society should function morally.
4. The number 1 definition for “sentience” is “capable of sensation or feeling.” Well, a fetus can curl its hand around something at a very early age, so it is sentient. Sorry, folks.
5. Finally,
If you have a problem with having sex with a woman when she is drunk, I have no problem with that. If you think it’s wrong to “force” yourself upon a woman, I have no quarrel with you. It’s really simple: Don’t have sex with a drunk woman. But don’t send me or anyone else to prison because we think differently.
Not a direct quote, but it makes my point. In no other area of criminal law do we get to say, “Well, you don’t think this is murder, so just don’t do it yourself.” I think it is morally wrong to kill the homeless, even though no one cares about them, acknowledges their existence, or would notice their death. Nevertheless, killing the homeless is not a personal choice and I would be sent to prison if I did it.
Likewise, it’s a cop-out to say that if you don’t approve of abortion, don’t have one. How ’bout the same for rape? If you believe that abortion is murder, you are under an obligation to stop it. If you don’t believe that it is murder, it is a personal choice. Therefore, the “don’t have one yourself” only works for people who are pro-choice anyway.
My final comment: no one asks about how the FETUS feels about all of this. Obviously, he is incapable of making the decision, but, in that case, a free society does not give the decision to the most powerful person, but rather prohibits any decision which does not protect the rights of both people. There is an unalienable right to life and liberty. The liberty rights of the woman are temporarily curtailed, but, even assuming they are equal to the right to life, the right to life trumps. Simply put, the woman is in the best position to have avoided the conflict of rights (either by using better birth control, using birth control at all, abstaining, or the like) and we assign burdens to those who are best able to avoid them.
Incidentally, women are more pro-life than men. Why is that?
Apropos of my penultimate paragraph: it is only barbarian societies that give rights to those most able, by force, to exercise them. One of the hallmarks of civilisation is that we do not predicate rights upon the ability to force others to respect them. We do not say that, since men are stronger than women, that they may attack us at will. Superiour reasoning abilities or physical capacity has never been the basis for moral decision-making and certainly is not the basis for rights in a civilised society.
Oddly, women have fought a very similar battle for thousands of years: we’ve argued that our smaller size and childbearing abilities do not make us less of citizens, less of persons, or less worthy of legal protection. The fact that our husbands may force themselves upon us - and the fact that our bodies are under their control in marriage - does not mean that they have the RIGHT to force themselves upon us.
Likewise, the fact that the woman is the only one capable of making the decision does not give her the right to do so.
If your goal was to annoy the hell out of me, you have succeeded marvelously. I am so bored of this conversation, which is why I didn’t want to have it in the first place. I shouldn’t have responded to you, and I’m kicking myself for having done so. I am not interested in debating abortion with anyone, especially not with someone who keeps making factually incorrect statements, mischaracterizing what I’ve written, and being unnecessarily condescending.
Stop with the “babycakes” and “honeys,” ‘kay? We’re all adults here.
There’s no Earth-shattering bit of information you’re going to give me that will shock my pro-choice sensibilities. I’ve heard all the arguments ad nauseum. I reject them.
I don’t need lessons on Constitutional law from you. I am a lawyer. Your first amendment analysis is hilarious. Sweetie, hate to break it to ya, but libel laws do indeed restrict free speech. They don’t unconstitutionally restrict free speech, but they do restrict it.
By god, you’re right! Why don’t you go ask a fetus how it feels about all of this and get back to me when you get a response? What’s that? You’ll never get one? Damn, that’s a shame. I guess that means you won’t ever be coming back. And here I was having so much FUN!
Buh-bye.
Obromo–
Nice “appeal to authority” there. A person could teach a semester-long course on logical fallacies using just a few hundred words of your writing as text.
Some of the most stupid people I’ve ever know have been engineers and / or lawyers, and you are no exception. So spare me.
Why don’t I simply ask any living person how they feel about being alive? Suicide rate: less than 1%. Okay, got my answer: now let’s outlaw abortion!
Stop with the “babycakes” and “honeys,” ‘kay? We’re all adults here.
….
Sweetie, hate to break it to ya, but libel laws do indeed restrict free speech. They don’t unconstitutionally restrict free speech, but they do restrict it.
Sweetie? Okay, sweetie acceptable, honey, not acceptable. Got it!
As a strict constructionalist, I take the view that the First Amendment only really protects political speech, which, of course, can be overridden by restrictions narrowly tailored to meet a compelling state interest. Of course, that’s just me… and a lot of Con Law scholars.
Frankly, your idea that fetal rights need to be found in the Constitution in order to be protected by the government is what really makes me think that you’re either not a lawyer or barely passed Con Law. The environment isn’t in the Constitution, either. Does that mean that the government can’t protect it?
(Of course, I think it’s a state issue to protect the environment, as it’s not an Art. I, Sec. 8 power, but that’s just me.)
I know that it’s hard to imagine that feminist libertarians can think that the use of violence to end the life of a vulnerable person is unacceptable. Yet, basic feminist and libertarian principles support my case: allowing life and liberty to others and a requirement of non-violence.
“Harassment” does not mean imprisonment. Sigh. Let’s go through this again: it was illegal to perform abortions, just not to get them. The women are rarely, if ever, jailed for seeking them out. Nevertheless, a woman could be subjected to, for example, a gynaecologist exam to determine if she had been pregnant, even temporarily.
What factual inaccuracies are there? Or are you making it up? The only factual inaccuracies I see are coming from you - that women are imprisoned for having abortions (ha!), that, since “fetus” isn’t part of the Constitution, that it isn’t protected by such, that abortion is even a constitutional issue to begin with….
Likewise, Straw Man, you prefer to throw about playground insults rather than to actually address issues.
You claim that many engineers and lawyers are stupid (what about Raging Red?
). Well, what is your definition of intelligence? You and you alone?
“Among engineers, a 10th %-tile IQ of 124 was found, with a 90th %-tile IQ of 148″
http://www.geocities.com/ultrahiiq/IQs_Over_120.html
130 Physicians and Surgeons; Lawyers; Engineers (Civil and Mechanical)
http://iq-test.learninginfo.org/iq04.htm
But you “know” stupid engineers and lawyers (ignoring the fact that anyone who gets into and through those programmes has more intelligence and work ethic than most Americans).
If my arguments suck so badly, take them apart. I frankly don’t care if that requires actual effort on your part instead of insults that my second-grade brother is too advanced to hurl about, but that is your duty.
Of course, a person who thinks that “ombro” is a word is hardly an authority….
Okay, theobromophile’s irony detector, nonexistent! Got it!
Frankly, your constant misunderstanding and mischaracterization of my arguments is no longer surprising. (And I got A’s in Con Law I and II. Wanna see my report card? Oh, and I am in fact a lawyer. Wanna see my State Bar ID?)
Yeah, I know. It’s an enormous hole in that whole “abortion is murder” argument.
Remember that time you claimed that in today’s “ultra-medically advanced society” a woman’s life is never in danger due to pregnancy?
Sigh. Let’s not. You know, I honestly mean this in the most polite way possible, but I do not give a damn what you think about abortion. This post was not an invitation to an abortion debate. As I said once before, the subject of the post is “Why Are You Pro-Choice?” If the question is inapplicable to you, then please refrain from commenting. If you insist on continuing to comment on this post, I’m just going to delete them. You are probably the most annoying commenter I’ve ever had. Congrats!
The women are rarely, if ever, jailed for seeking them out.
Yeah, I know. It’s an enormous hole in that whole “abortion is murder” argument.
Would you prefer to incarcerate women who seek abortions?
Folly: acting contrary to your self-interest.
Damn, I really was going to start deleting your comments, but that one is so utterly stupid that I have to leave it.
Read this v e r y s l o w l y :
Pro-lifers often use the slogan “Abortion is murder.” Pro-lifers argue that aborting a pregnancy is equivalent to shooting someone in the head. You yourself, in this very thread, have referred to abortion as murder and as infanticide and have said that a woman who has an abortion is killing a child.
Yet when you ask pro-lifers how they would punish these murdering women, most of them do not advocate putting women in jail. This is a huge hole in the argument that abortion is equivalent to murder, because if pro-lifers truly believed that, they would argue that women who have abortions should be punished in the same way that we punish people who are convicted of murder (i.e., with long prison sentences or even the death penalty).
To me, this is clear evidence that pro-lifers do not really think abortion is equivalent to murder. To me, this is evidence that they are motivated by something other than saving babies.
I am not acting contrary to my self-interest, I am pointing out a flaw in the pro-life position.
I’m not stupid, so stop patronising me, Miss West Virginia (i.e not the intellectual capital of America).
The woman does not perform the abortion: her doctor (or an abortionist) does that. It is not uncommon to punish the person who commits the act. Yes, we do punish conspiracies and solicitation of murder, but we are under NO obligation to punish everyone.
It is contrary to your self-interest for the simple reason that pro-lifers who hear that might think, “Yes, good point: we should put women who have abortions in jail.” Then, you would have created yourself not just an anti-abortion society (where abortion is unavailable), but one in which women who abort are subject to jail sentences.
That is a flaw in your pro-woman reasoning. You refuse to acknowledge that pro-lifers have set up a system by which they are compassionate towards the woman (by refusing to jail her), but have no mercy for the abortionist, who is not scared and pregnant. We assume, per se, that normal mens rea requirements were not fulfilled, or that the circumstances she is faced with excuse her conduct. We do not give the same deference to the abortionist.
… but, if you want, we can start throwing women in jail.
Ooh, resorting to geography-based insults. Looks like you’re getting desperate. Where, pray tell, is the intellectual capital of America? On the “left” coast? I lived there for a time — does that give me any intellectual cred? I was born in Seattle, so I guess that makes me a fucking genius, huh? I didn’t realize zip codes and IQ’s were so closely correlated. You seem to be a tad preoccupied with credentials. I could email you my resume and a list of my residences for the past ten years if you like.
You’ve gone from annoying to funny. Come on, you’re a parody, aren’t you?
Thanks ever so much for your concern, but I’m not too worried about some random anti-choicer stopping by my blog, reading my comment about the flawed logic of people who are supposedly against murder not actually wanting to punish the murderers as murderers, then being single-handedly responsible for changing the entire legal landscape regarding abortion in this country. I just don’t think I have that much power.
Thanks for demonstrating yet another way that anti-choicers are anti-woman: You don’t even think a woman is capable of making an autonomous decision to have an abortion based on a rational consideration of her life circumstances. No, the only way a woman would ever decide to have an abortion is if she’s a frightened emotional wreck who is taken advantage of by an evil abortionist. She can’t possibly be held responsible for her own actions, since her puny lady brain isn’t even capable of forming the correct mens rea. (It’s so cute when law students try to sound smarter by peppering their comments with Latin legal phrases!)
You’re too much. Anti-choicers are compassionate toward women??? Stop it! Really, you’re going to make me pee my pants!
You don’t even think a woman is capable of making an autonomous decision to have an abortion based on a rational consideration of her life circumstances.
I just don’t think it’s a valid decision. I think that men are capable of deciding whether or not to rape their wives, but I want marital rape to be illegal. It’s a favourite line of pro-abortionists that pro-lifers don’t trust women… they fail to realise that we simply do not think that the “choice” to kill your child is valid.
We aren’t talking about putting your snowflake baby up for adoption; we aren’t talking a high-tech, artificial womb. We’re talking about deliberately killing your child.
You’re too much. Anti-choicers are compassionate toward women??? Stop it! Really, you’re going to make me pee my pants!
As opposed to what? Pointing out the TRUTH that the real abortion supporters are young men who want to screw with impunity? That women who abort cry for decades afterwards? That most women regret their abortions and feel horrible guilt? That, guess what, the “choice” to abort doesn’t make men suffer, doesn’t make men pregnant, and does nothing aside from ending one life and ruining another life. Yeah, that’s the end result of the anti-life mentality.
Not every woman who has an abortion feels guilty and cries for “decades” afterwards. Plenty of women feel just fine about their choice and know it was the right thing to do. Abortion does not ruin women’s lives, it gives women more control over their own lives and their futures.
The fact that you cannot even imagine any reason that a woman would not want to be pregnant except for a vain desire not to have stretch marks speaks volumes about your inhumanity. You are a disgusting, hateful human being.
I know I keep saying that I’m not going to engage in a debate with you or that I’m going to delete your comments, but now I’m really finished with you. Your words are hateful and shockingly devoid of any compassion for living, breathing, sentient, adult women. You come off as a privileged asshole. I’m done letting you shit all over my comments section with your vile opinions. Have you ever really listened to yourself? You value a tiny little EMBRYO who has just started forming brain cells and who may or may not actually survive long enough to be born into this world over a WOMAN with a fully formed and functioning brain who has been walking around on this Earth for years or decades, who has a family and friends whom she loves and who love her, who has hopes and dreams about her life. You make me sick.
I can’t think of anything else I would possibly want to say to you, so I’m going to cut and paste some comments from other people who do value adult, living, breathing women’s lives.
deep6:
ahunt:
thebewilderness
history_mom
Roy
Roy again:
You are no longer welcome here. Go away and spread your hate on your own fucking blog.