Can we compromise on abortion?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

And a practical solution takes the reality into account. A total ban of abortions doesn't lead to no abortions, it just leads to unsafe abortions. In fact, countries where abortion is legal and accessible, have fewer abortions than those with heavy restrictions. So, if you want to reduce the number of abortions, you should want to have abortions to be legal. That is, if you can think practically not in a naïve, absolutist legal way.

It's occurred to me that one explanation for the apparently sincere offense that anti-choicers express when I point out the implications of the policies they're asking for and how these implications reflect on them is that they just haven't considered the implications of their position.

It could very well be that their thinking on the issue doesn't get much deeper than "abortion goes against my deeply-held beliefs, therefore abortion should be illegal."

... which has its own scary implications, since it implies that going against their deeply-held beliefs is grounds to make things illegal, and anyone holds deeply-held beliefs about way more than just abortion.

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

Yes, I am prochoice across the spectrum. But I doubt if you understand what that means. So called prolife people tend to be prolife only when it comes to abortion. That is playing word games. Like I said, backwards again.

So you are pro choice on what guns people can choose to have, or on taxes, on what schools parents can choose, on what efficiency rating of air conditioner I can put in my home, or who to hire based on race, gender etc.?

When you use a strawman argument you have not answered the question given to you. How can you not know this?

I will ask again, what questions have I not answered?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I will ask again, what questions have I not answered?

You've repeatedly not answered my questions about why you don't prioritize approaches that would prevent more abortions than legal prohibition campaigns would, and would be more easily passed.

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

Your position, no abortion from conception on, is the extreme on the one end; abortion up until birth is the extreme on the other end.
The question is whether those extremists can compromise.
I'm exactly in the middle between the extremes.

If people like me believe in protecting human life then being against abortion is bot extreme. Just like it is not extreme to be against rape for example. There are issues where compromising is the extreme position.

To argue for a compromise, I like to point out that we are not discussing whether a woman should or should not have an abortion. That is, after all, a moral decision. If you don't like abortions - don't have one.

We are discussion whether abortion should be legal and if, under which circumstances. This requires compromise or the law would likely change all four years between no regulation and total ban. A practical solution can't be an extreme one.

I disagree, the discussion is not about the legality of abortion it is about if the human life should be protected or not.

And a practical solution takes the reality into account. A total ban of abortions doesn't lead to no abortions, it just leads to unsafe abortions. In fact, countries where abortion is legal and accessible, have fewer abortions than those with heavy restrictions. So, if you want to reduce the number of abortions, you should want to have abortions to be legal. That is, if you can think practically not in a naïve, absolutist legal way.

This is not totally true. This data from the UN shows the top 10 countries with the highest abortion rates have no restrictions on abortion.

Abortion Rates by Country 2024

worldpopulationreview.com

This has a summary of abortion laws.

Countries Where Abortion Is Illegal 2024

worldpopulationreview.com

This does not say all countries are like this. It says that some countries with restrictive abortion laws do have higher rates than some countries with no restrictions. These are underdeveloped nations where a child provides a financial burden they cannot meet. But in developed nations such as the US this is not generally the case which is what we are discussing.

 

[fantome profane]

It seems like they do not have an obligation to take care of the eventual child if they did not choose actions to create the child.

So you think a woman who had consensual sex has an obligation and you want to use the force of government to make her fulfill what you see as her obligation.

But the truth is just as you don't know what it is like for a woman to get pregnant from rape you don't know what it is like for a woman to get pregnant from consensual sex. You really don't know what is best in either situation.

This is not about the life of the fetus, this is about your feeling that the government should control women.

 

[fantome profane]

This is not totally true. This data from the UN shows the top 10 countries with the highest abortion rates have no restrictions on abortion.

Abortion Rates by Country 2023

But interesting to note that the abortion rate is higher in the U.S. than it is in Canada.

(And you should be highly skeptical of those countries that report 0 abortions. Not believable)

 

[Heyo]

I disagree, the discussion is not about the legality of abortion it is about if the human life should be protected or not.

But in developed nations such as the US this is not generally the case which is what we are discussing.

Do you see the contradiction? If we were discussing a moral problem, it would be universal. A human life is a human life, in the US and everywhere else. So it is indeed a legal problem.

A moral problem is whether to kill animals for food. If you don't like it, you don't do it. You might argue on RF to convince others but in the end you don't impose your will by governmental force.

These are underdeveloped nations where a child provides a financial burden they cannot meet. But in developed nations such as the US this is not generally the case which is what we are discussing.

The US is not a developed nation. In the US a child can be a financial burden. Developed nations have free healthcare for children and mother, they have long, paid maternal leave with job guarantees, they have child assistance, they have free education.

 

[Heyo]

If people like me believe in protecting human life then being against abortion is bot extreme. Just like it is not extreme to be against rape for example. There are issues where compromising is the extreme position.


I disagree, the discussion is not about the legality of abortion it is about if the human life should be protected or not.


This is not totally true. This data from the UN shows the top 10 countries with the highest abortion rates have no restrictions on abortion.

Abortion Rates by Country 2024

worldpopulationreview.com

This has a summary of abortion laws.

Countries Where Abortion Is Illegal 2024

worldpopulationreview.com

This does not say all countries are like this. It says that some countries with restrictive abortion laws do have higher rates than some countries with no restrictions. These are underdeveloped nations where a child provides a financial burden they cannot meet. But in developed nations such as the US this is not generally the case which is what we are discussing.

@Clizby Wampuscat:

"The real-world impact of making abortion illegal​

According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), the legality of abortion across the world actually has little to no effect on abortion rates throughout the world. Legal or not, abortions can, will, and do take place. The legality of abortion, however, does affect how safe those abortions are. Women who do not have access to a legal abortion frequently turn to illegal or "homemade" abortion options, which are typically much riskier, more dangerous, and less effective than legal options conducted by professional doctors in a clinical setting would be." - from the second link.

Just what I said. Making abortion illegal is not practical. And while legal abortion access is not the only factor, it comes often in a package of practical solutions. Canada, Scandinavia, almost all of western Europe, Australia and India have easy and legal access to abortion and lower abortion rates than the US where it is harder on average.

 

[Heyo]

Just when I thought my attempt to talk about compromise was dead in the water, here comes someone that gets it.

This place will never cease to surprise me.

I was always here, slowly and meticulously setting the scene.

 

[Koldo]

Do you see the contradiction? If we were discussing a moral problem, it would be universal. A human life is a human life, in the US and everywhere else. So it is indeed a legal problem.

A moral problem is whether to kill animals for food. If you don't like it, you don't do it. You might argue on RF to convince others but in the end you don't impose your will by governmental force.

That is actually likely to happen eventually. Not within my lifetime, but definitely.

 

[Subduction Zone]

So you are pro choice on what guns people can choose to have, or on taxes, on what schools parents can choose, on what efficiency rating of air conditioner I can put in my home, or who to hire based on race, gender etc.?


I will ask again, what questions have I not answered?

And now you are the one playing silly word games again. It is amazing that you have to try to be silly to find an objection and think that makes a good argument for you. In this entire argument your reasoning has been very very shallow.

And I do not obsess. I do not keep an "enemies list". Your strawman arguments have been pointed out to you again and again. Just try to argue properly. Why is that so difficult? It is almost as if you know that you are wrong.

 

[crossfire]

So your reason for terminating the human life is that it cannot make decisions or that it does not know it exists? That is not the potential child's fault. That is the way biology works. The parents have an obligation to protect the human life because of the actions they freely chose.

You can't force pair-bonding. That power is not within the realm of the State. Likewise, an embryo does not have the magical power to cause pair-bonding.

Parents are obligated to take care of their children that have been born, even if it is just from a business relationship rather than a pair-bonded relationship. However, they do have the option to separate themselves from their children and give up their parental rights, and have their children become wards of the State if they cannot manage a business relationship in regard to raising their children. This would ensure that the children would be taken care of by proxy.

There is no viable option to separate from an embryo and give parental rights to the State for an embryo in the case of a pregnancy. There is no proxy available. Without an available proxy, the State cannot seize control of a woman simply because she is pregnant. Implementing such a policy would interfere with established families who are pair-bonded.

Again, the State has no power to cause pair-bonding, but seizing control of pregnant women will certainly interfere with pair-bonding, which is contrary to the interests of both the State as well as society at large.

 

[Subduction Zone]

But interesting to note that the abortion rate is higher in the U.S. than it is in Canada.

(And you should be highly skeptical of those countries that report 0 abortions. Not believable)

That is not unexpected. Canada probably has lower abortion rates for the same reason that neighborhoods with a Planned Parenthood Office nearby have lower abortion rates.

 

[SomeRandom]

If everything goes well, maybe.

Pregnancy and childbirth are still a leading causes of death, and even a "successful" pregnancy can have long-term impacts on health, including organ function.

Edit: even in a pregnancy with no issues at all, an embryo/fetus is excreting into the pregnant person's blood for ~9 months. Let's not pretend that this is nothing.

Whilst I certainly agree.
I feel compelled to ask. The modern world has largely mitigated some (certainly not all) of the risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth through medical science. Though the US in particular is lagging behind in that regard.
Would you think better of a pro life advocate if they made such medical necessities a core base structure of their argument?
Basically meaning that the person in question champions access and research into such medical methods whilst advocating for pro life measures.
Just curious

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Whilst I certainly agree.
I feel compelled to ask. The modern world has largely mitigated some (certainly not all) of the risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth through medical science. Though the US in particular is lagging behind in that regard.

To an extent, but even with modern medical technology, pregnancy still has significant risks.

We have better maternal and neonatal mortality here in Canada than in the US, on average, but even in my small circle of friends, I know two people who had life-threatening pregnancy complications. I don't know anyone who had no complications from their pregnancies.

Would you think better of a pro life advocate if they made such medical necessities a core base structure of their argument?
Basically meaning that the person in question champions access and research into such medical methods whilst advocating for pro life measures.
Just curious

I hesitated bringing up risk because it can very quickly get into the weeds into a debate around how low of a risk level justifies violating someone's bodily autonomy. Even having that debate misses the point: the only person who is entitled to say what level of risk is acceptable - and what role factors beside risk should play in the decision - is the person whose body is at issue.

I think that bodily autonomy applies regardless of risk... I mean, donating blood has negligible risk, but we don't compel people to donate blood against their will.

I think the most fitting analogy I can draw is to rape (and I really do feel that anti-choicers are analogous to rapists; the main difference is that rape is typically one perpetrator against one victim, while the anti-choice movement is many perpetrators against many victims): while I recognize that there's a spectrum of how bad rape can be, it's not really like I "think better of" rapists at the least severe end of the range. I'm not approaching the issue in these terms.

That being said, I think that when I look at the anti-choice movement's positions now, it's hard not to infer a blatant disregard for the welfare of pregnant people to the point of it being an expression of deeply-held misogyny. If arguing for better medical care for pregnant people became a standard part of the anti-choice platform, I might have to infer different motives.

 

[metis]

I know the verse. Exodus 21 22 in the Christian Bible, I do not know if the numbering system is the same for the Torah. That is a more recent addition to the work. Christian Bibles used to same the same thing. Somewhere in my house there is a Revised Standard Edition from my Lutheran church that uses the word "miscarriage". I cannot find it now. But I have found my housemates Catholic bible from the mid 11960's and it uses the word "miscarriage". The change in translation appears to have occurred some time after Roe v. Wade. I find that rather disturbing.

I prefer to use the RSV as it is willing to sacrifice some poetic wording for more accuracy, and it's used more than any other version with theologians for that reason. I have a Catholic version of the RSV, and one can access the general RSV on-line and use it as a search engine: Bible: Revised Standard Version I use this a lot here at RF.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I prefer to use the RSV as it is willing to sacrifice some poetic wording for more accuracy, and it's used more than any other version with theologians for that reason. I have a Catholic version of the RSV, and one can access the general RSV on-line and use it as a search engine: Bible: Revised Standard Version I use this a lot here at RF.

Yes, the RSV, not the RSE. Thank you. It is somewhere in my house. Time for a serious spring cleaning. And I see that still has the pre-Roe v Wade version.. And I had to check Bible Hub and found a different web page that has quite a few versions that still use the word "miscarriage" or its like. In there the "New Revised Standard Version" still has the word "miscarriage. Go Lutherans! Sorry, no longer a Christian but I still feel good when the branch that I came from out performs many others. It appears that as pro-life as the Catholics are that they have not messed with this verse either:

Exodus 21:22 - Personal Injury Laws

If men who are fighting strike a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband demands and as the court allows.

biblehub.com

For the Catholics that would be the Douay-Rheims Bible. Kudos to them for being honest enough not to let politics affect their translation of the Bible.

 

[metis]

For the Catholics that would be the Douay-Rheims Bible. Kudos to them for being honest enough not to let politics affect their translation of the Bible.

I have three different Catholic Bible: RSV, Jerusalem Bible, and New American Bible. However, I haven't checked out the verses in each that relate to what we're discussing.

 

[Alien826]

Yes, the RSV, not the RSE. Thank you. It is somewhere in my house. Time for a serious spring cleaning. And I see that still has the pre-Roe v Wade version.. And I had to check Bible Hub and found a different web page that has quite a few versions that still use the word "miscarriage" or its like. In there the "New Revised Standard Version" still has the word "miscarriage. Go Lutherans! Sorry, no longer a Christian but I still feel good when the branch that I came from out performs many others. It appears that as pro-life as the Catholics are that they have not messed with this verse either:

I would be interested to learn what the original (Hebrew?) means. Does anyone know of an educated opinion on that?

Incidentally, and slightly at a tangent, I doubt the Bible has an opinion on abortion as it is known today becasue it would be such a foreign idea to them. Women that couldn't (or didn't) have children were seen as inferior at best and the idea that a woman might want to terminate a pregnancy?

Edit: Is Exodus 21:22 about a premature birth or a miscarriage?

The words apparently mean "so that her fruit depart from her", so I guess it's all modern day politics.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I would be interested to learn what the original (Hebrew?) means. Does anyone know of an educated opinion on that?

Incidentally, and slightly at a tangent, I doubt the Bible has an opinion on abortion as it is known today becasue it would be such a foreign idea to them. Women that couldn't (or didn't) have children were seen as inferior at best and the idea that a woman might want to terminate a pregnancy?

Edit: Is Exodus 21:22 about a premature birth or a miscarriage?

The words apparently mean "so that her fruit depart from her", so I guess it's all modern day politics.

From various Jewish sources, and also by reason it means "miscarriage". I will leave it to others for the Jewish interpretation, but when it comes to laws the law itself is always about the general case. One does not make a law stating:

"It is okay to kill others in self defense . . . oh and in general do not kill others". But that is what the "premature birth" interpretation does. It states the law backwards. In those days a premature birth was going to be a death sentence in the vast majority of cases. Zygote, death. Embryo, death. Fetus born before 35 weeks, dead. In fact this article states that the risk starts at 39 weeks. If one is trying to induce an early birth by various means it does not recommend it before that time period. Before 35 weeks it is going to need an incubator:

Why at least 39 weeks is best for your baby

If your pregnancy is healthy, it’s best to stay pregnant for at least 39 weeks. Wait for labor to begin on its own.

www.marchofdimes.org

One does not make a law that deals with the relatively rare exception first and then says "Oh, if there was anything wrong with the baby then you punish the man.

As to the Bible openly stating that it is for or against abortion it does not exactly state that. But it does give the case when an abortion can be done by a Hebrew priest. Since the Bible treats sex outside of marriage as a serious sin, abortions by single women would almost certainly be frowned upon. Women were essentially property in the Old Testament. When it came down to it they had some control over their lives, but if their father decided to have them marry a man the woman did not have the final say. And when married a crime against a woman was mostly a property crime. She had no control over her body, but her husband did.