The abortion debate: a pro-life perspective

[an anarchist]

In a thread I made earlier on circumcision, the topic of abortion has been debated.
I would like to offer my pro-life perspective, and I am curious about the perspective of pro-choicers. I would like to understand the opposing viewpoint better, and am willing to be convinced to be pro-choice. Though my conviction on this subject is strong.
The perspective of a pro-lifer is that a fetus is equivalent to a human being. So it is viewed that all these abortions are essentially genocide on the mass scale. Such is the reason such strong convictions are developed on the subject by pro-lifers. If this is your perspective, how can you not feel ever so strongly about it and want to be vocal in your opposition to abortion?
Yet I understand that this thinking could be flawed. I have dozens of outfits, all made probably in a sweatshop halfway across the world. I pay taxes, and my taxes pay for bombs that bomb people. So, do I accuse all taxpayers of beings mass murderers? Do I accuse people who wear clothes of being child abusers? Probably not.
Personally, though I am a pro-lifer, I have the unique perspective of having aborted my own child with my own hands. (In Mexico where it's legal) I’m mentally ill you see, and my wife at the time didn’t want that to be passed on. Do pro-choice people believe that abortion is a mercy killing? Saving the child from poor circumstances and possibly disease. Are we allowed to do these mercy killings, like, is it right to kill out of mercy. I am deeply conflicted.
Bodily autonomy. What can I do when my child is in my wife’s body? Her body, her choice. When I fret about the abortion in the present day, my current partner will remind me these things.
- I had no control over what my wife did with her body
- there was nothing I could have done to prevent it, as my wife had decided what was best for her
- I was not ready to be a father, and could not have provided well for my child

I have not fully accepted these points yet, but I must I think.
I just wanted to offer my perspective and what I have learned on the subject. I would like to get some pro choice perspectives on the topic of abortion.
I think the issue is deeply divisive, at least here in the USA. Whole political and religious divides are because of abortion. It turns people against each other. Let’s understand each other instead.

 

[metis]

But are you truly "pro-life" as there are numerous "pro-life" issues, and being opposed to abortion, as I am, is just one of them?

 

[viole]

In a thread I made earlier on circumcision, the topic of abortion has been debated.
I would like to offer my pro-life perspective, and I am curious about the perspective of pro-choicers. I would like to understand the opposing viewpoint better, and am willing to be convinced to be pro-choice. Though my conviction on this subject is strong.
The perspective of a pro-lifer is that a fetus is equivalent to a human being. So it is viewed that all these abortions are essentially genocide on the mass scale. Such is the reason such strong convictions are developed on the subject by pro-lifers. If this is your perspective, how can you not feel ever so strongly about it and want to be vocal in your opposition to abortion?
Yet I understand that this thinking could be flawed. I have dozens of outfits, all made probably in a sweatshop halfway across the world. I pay taxes, and my taxes pay for bombs that bomb people. So, do I accuse all taxpayers of beings mass murderers? Do I accuse people who wear clothes of being child abusers? Probably not.
Personally, though I am a pro-lifer, I have the unique perspective of having aborted my own child with my own hands. (In Mexico where it's legal) I’m mentally ill you see, and my wife at the time didn’t want that to be passed on. Do pro-choice people believe that abortion is a mercy killing? Saving the child from poor circumstances and possibly disease. Are we allowed to do these mercy killings, like, is it right to kill out of mercy. I am deeply conflicted.
Bodily autonomy. What can I do when my child is in my wife’s body? Her body, her choice. When I fret about the abortion in the present day, my current partner will remind me these things.
- I had no control over what my wife did with her body
- there was nothing I could have done to prevent it, as my wife had decided what was best for her
- I was not ready to be a father, and could not have provided well for my child

I have not fully accepted these points yet, but I must I think.
I just wanted to offer my perspective and what I have learned on the subject. I would like to get some pro choice perspectives on the topic of abortion.
I think the issue is deeply divisive, at least here in the USA. Whole political and religious divides are because of abortion. It turns people against each other. Let’s understand each other instead.

My pro-choice argument can be summarized is the following statement: I rather attribute personhood to a gorilla, than to a single human cell in a Petri dish.

and I even go so far to claim universal agreement with that.

i have the impression the problem is mainly American. Here abortion is no issue. We also use it to eliminate genetic diseases from the population, if that genetic disease appears on a prenatal screen. For instance, places like Iceland are basically Down Syndrome free because of that.

ciao

- viole

 

[an anarchist]

But are you truly "pro-life" as there are numerous "pro-life" issues, and being opposed to abortion, as I am, is just one of them?

What other pro life issues are you thinking?

 

[Father Heathen]

I see abortion as a sad ordeal and I would rather they occur less often, but ultimately bodily autonomy takes precedence and early stage fetuses lack the requisite attributes for attaining personhood.

 

[metis]

What other pro life issues are you thinking?

Areas such as capital punishment, climate change, racism, income disparity leading to deep poverty, universal health care, gun control, weapons of mass destruction, etc.

I gotta go until tomorrow.

 

[an anarchist]

income disparity leading to deep poverty,

universal health care,

Hmm let’s hone in on these two issues. So I’m sure you and I would disagree about the best way to distribute health care and wealth. I would advocate that a free market system is the most efficient system at doing this and best for the consumer, while universal healthcare implies that a socialist system is best for the consumer. We both have the same goals, but would advocate for different methods achieving this goal. So would you not consider me pro life if I’m against universal healthcare?

 

[Orbit]

Abortion, like birth control, is sometimes needed medically. Criminalizing abortion makes live-saving care harder to get, as doctors don't want to do procedures for fear of liability and witch-hunts. Women who have miscarriages find themselves under suspicion of murder when about a third of pregnancies miscarry in the first trimester. Ectopic pregnancies, which are not viable and will lead to the death of the mother are also relatively common and abortion is the only treatment. Religious people use incorrect images of near full term abortions to scare people, when in reality abortions are done when it's a clump of cells, not a baby. Some religious people also have a problem with birth control, like Hobby Lobby won't pay for it on their health plan for their employees, when many women take birth control pills because it is the only treatment for polycystic ovaries, which is a common problem. The religious arguments are draconic, and create social problems and often mischaracterize exactly in what circumstances abortions are occurring. Elective abortion isn't the only kind of abortion. Abortion is a medical procedure that is called for in several medical and social circumstances (like rape of a minor, or rape at all). No one should be forced to have a relationship with their rapist because a child was produced. I find modern prohibitions on early term abortion as kind of humorous given that in human history unwanted babies were exposed at birth or drowned. Aborting a clump of cells is far more humane than that.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

But are you truly "pro-life" as there are numerous "pro-life" issues, and being opposed to abortion, as I am, is just one of them?

This is why I use the term "anti-choice."

A person who opposes safe and legal abortion isn't necessarily "pro-life", and someone who considers themselves opposed to abortion on "pro-life" grounds doesn't necessarily support an anti-choice approach to achieve their goal.

Someone who opposes safe and legal abortion isn't even necessarily "anti-abortion," since many of them also support things that drive up abortion rates (e.g. banning birth control) and oppose things that would reduce it (e.g. making it easier to afford parenthood or reducing the stigma around being a single parent).

... but they all oppose allowing choice on the issue of abortion, so "anti-choice" always fits.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

New Abortion, like birth control, is sometimes needed medically. Criminalizing abortion makes live-saving care harder to get, as doctors don't want to do procedures for fear of liability and witch-hunts.

The textbook example of this is what happened to Savita Halappanavar: an abortion would have saved her life, but the Irish anti-abortion law only provided an exemption to save the life of the pregnant person.

By the time it was clear that nothing but an abortion could save her life, it was too late to save her life.

In that sort of legal framework, a doctor trying to decide whether to proceed with a life-saving abortion doesn't only have to ask themselves whether an abortion is medically indicated or is the best course of action, but also whether some other doctor called as an expert witness for the prosecution might testify at trial that they could have saved the patient's life without an abortion.

Considering that medicine often deals in probabilities than clear-cut answers, it's often not 100% certain that an abortion was the only life-saving option unless you don't do the abortion and the patient dies.

 

[Nimos]

In a thread I made earlier on circumcision, the topic of abortion has been debated.
I would like to offer my pro-life perspective, and I am curious about the perspective of pro-choicers. I would like to understand the opposing viewpoint better, and am willing to be convinced to be pro-choice. Though my conviction on this subject is strong.
The perspective of a pro-lifer is that a fetus is equivalent to a human being. So it is viewed that all these abortions are essentially genocide on the mass scale. Such is the reason such strong convictions are developed on the subject by pro-lifers. If this is your perspective, how can you not feel ever so strongly about it and want to be vocal in your opposition to abortion?
Yet I understand that this thinking could be flawed. I have dozens of outfits, all made probably in a sweatshop halfway across the world. I pay taxes, and my taxes pay for bombs that bomb people. So, do I accuse all taxpayers of beings mass murderers? Do I accuse people who wear clothes of being child abusers? Probably not.
Personally, though I am a pro-lifer, I have the unique perspective of having aborted my own child with my own hands. (In Mexico where it's legal) I’m mentally ill you see, and my wife at the time didn’t want that to be passed on. Do pro-choice people believe that abortion is a mercy killing? Saving the child from poor circumstances and possibly disease. Are we allowed to do these mercy killings, like, is it right to kill out of mercy. I am deeply conflicted.
Bodily autonomy. What can I do when my child is in my wife’s body? Her body, her choice. When I fret about the abortion in the present day, my current partner will remind me these things.
- I had no control over what my wife did with her body
- there was nothing I could have done to prevent it, as my wife had decided what was best for her
- I was not ready to be a father, and could not have provided well for my child

I have not fully accepted these points yet, but I must I think.
I just wanted to offer my perspective and what I have learned on the subject. I would like to get some pro choice perspectives on the topic of abortion.
I think the issue is deeply divisive, at least here in the USA. Whole political and religious divides are because of abortion. It turns people against each other. Let’s understand each other instead.

Its a difficult topic with no right or wrong answer in my opinion.

Personally, im pro choice as you call it, but I think it is a bit of a misrepresentation of my position using the labels pro life and pro choice as if these are opposites. Don't get me wrong I do understand what you mean by it, but it could give the impression that those that are pro choice, do not really value life as much as the other side, which is not the case.

But for me, "life" in itself doesn't beat everything else that you can throw on the table so to speak, so that it automatically win.

To better understand my position at least, without making a 10 page long post, I would say that I value the quality of life that a baby might get. And one of the first criteria for me is that the parents even want it or feel ready for it in the first place.
I couldn't imagine a more severe punishment for a baby than to be born into a world with parents that doesn't really want it, I think the chance of such baby getting a very poor life is huge. I don't even think that adoption is a good solution either, even though this obviously could solve an issue where parents are unable to get children, I don't think its a valid excuse in this case.

Adoption is the best solution when things have already gone wrong so to speak whatever the reason might be. So for me this is what beats everything else:

"The babies quality of life is what beats everything else, not life itself."

There are many reasons why people want an abortion so its not possible to cover all here, but if parents for whatever reason, don't feel that they are able to provide or give a baby the highest quality of life as they can, then I think abortion is a better option.

From a scientific point of view:
Consciousness requires a sophisticated network of highly interconnected components, nerve cells. Its physical substrate, the thalamo-cortical complex that provides consciousness with its highly elaborate content, begins to be in place between the 24th and 28th week of gestation.

So if it is done within the period of time which scientists say that the fetus have not yet developed consciousness or self awareness, I do not see an issue with it.

Last, is the parents themselves. People have lots of issues and life might not always treat them well, but nonetheless these are individuals, living and breathing and I don't think it is the optimal solution to potentially ruin peoples lives and that of a baby because of principles.

Again, there is no right or wrong solution to this as I see it, but merely to choose the least worse solution, which I think the above solution is.

 

[Estro Felino]

Christianly speaking, I guess all Christians wish no woman took that decision.
No woman.

That said, from a secular point of view, the law cannot prevent a woman from taking that decision.

But the State can do anything to dissuade the woman from going ahead with that decision.
And in so many cases, the adopting parents who would like to adopt a baby are so many. So many that the procedure here is that a pregnant woman can be convinced to deliver the baby and to sign the consent for their adoption.

 

[Altfish]

I am against abortion but pro-choice.
Abortion should be a last resort, when all other alternatives have been explored and the mother's health is at risk (or the baby will have no viable life)

 

[pearl]

I would like to offer my pro-life perspective, and I am curious about the perspective of pro-choicers. I would like to understand the opposing viewpoint better, and am willing to be convinced to be pro-choice. Though my conviction on this subject is strong.

Might be a good idea to first clarify the terms as they apply to the legal or the moral question of abortion. Pro-life is inclusive of all life, from conception to grave. All too often anti-abortion has little interest post uterus. Pro- choice may sound like an option but remember its in favor of the legal right to abortion though with possible restrictions, Then there is the accusation of murder, false since the Court has made abortion legal. Then there is the same old question; when does life begin? Even within the early church fathers there were differing opinions, from not until ensoulment, ( Aquinas, Augustine),
That the Church had differing opinions at times as to whether an act of abortion was considered a 'homicide'. Aquinas, Augustine, concerned with when the union of the soul to the body, (ensoulment) took place. And from the Didache, ""Thou shalt not slay the child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten. For everything that is shaped, and has received a soul from God, if slain, it shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed." apolostic constitutions didache book 7.

There needs to be a legal system that as a whole supports and promotes the virtues necessary to protect human dignity and sustain a culture of life? At all stages.
The way some of the states are implementing laws now, with absolutely no compromise is in the opposite direction. One poor woman self aborted and the state initially charged her with murder!
As for my personal opinion, abortion ought to be rare and safe. The moral issue belongs to the woman and her conscience.

 

[sun rise]

My position is based on the belief that the soul does not enter the fetus at conception. So to me the fetus is not a human being until later, perhaps about 22 weeks, when it can survive in theory out of the womb. This is close to an Islamic perspective. It's also been a matter of debate as the Wikipedia page goes into.

I don't particularly like abortion. It would be better in most cases if the fetus was carried to term and the baby adopted by those who would love and care for the child. I would structure society to make that much easier than it is now.

But I'm pretty libertarian within broad limits when it comes to who makes the choice.

And if someone believes abortion is murder, then either they treat abortion just like murder 1 when it comes to charging a crime or they don't really believe what they claim. It can't be both ways.

And when it comes to pro-life, my attitude is very close to Pope Francis who believes that pro-life includes dealing with poverty, crime, health-care and other issues affecting the "least" with the exception of the first few months of fetal development.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Many pregancies terminate spontaneously -- more than are actually deliberately aborted!

Until a fetus can survive outside the body -- not necessarily on its own, but with all the help medical care can provide -- we cannot consider it to be equivalent to "a baby" or "a person." It is not, not yet. And before about 22-24 weeks of gestation, medical help can only save a small percentage of those that are taken early or ejected from the womb.

We cannot leave out of consideration the will for bodily autonomy of a thinking adult female who, for reasons that may be completely her own, determines that she deeply does not wish to even try to carry a pregnancy to term. I cannot bring myself to affirm that she ought to have no choice in the matter -- even when the pregnancy is the result of rape, incest or other unintended conception.

Therefore, though I consider myself pro-life (I like life, I'd like to keep mine, I prefer planned contraception to abortion), I must in all reason call myself pro-choice on this issue.

 

[Subduction Zone]

My pro-choice argument can be summarized is the following statement: I rather attribute personhood to a gorilla, than to a single human cell in a Petri dish.

and I even go so far to claim universal agreement with that.

i have the impression the problem is mainly American. Here abortion is no issue. We also use it to eliminate genetic diseases from the population, if that genetic disease appears on a prenatal screen. For instance, places like Iceland are basically Down Syndrome free because of that.

ciao

- viole

You may also have a social system that supports a young mother that may not be married so there is no "My life is ruined" reaction. The reason that a lot of abortions occur here is probably because of how single mothers are treated. Oddly enough "pro-life" people never seem to be on the side of improving the social safety net.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Women who have miscarriages find themselves under suspicion of murder when about a third of pregnancies miscarry in the first trimester. Ectopic pregnancies, which are not viable and will lead to the death of the mother are also relatively common and abortion is the only treatment.

If they'd put that onto billboards and made it well known, then we probably wouldn't have had such a terrible political divide over it for the last forty years. Its a very clear and understandable comment.

 

[pearl]

And when it comes to pro-life, my attitude is very close to Pope Francis who believes that pro-life includes dealing with poverty, crime, health-care and other issues affecting the "least" with the exception of the first few months of fetal development.

And doing away with the death penalty.

 

[Heyo]

In a thread I made earlier on circumcision, the topic of abortion has been debated.
I would like to offer my pro-life perspective, and I am curious about the perspective of pro-choicers. I would like to understand the opposing viewpoint better, and am willing to be convinced to be pro-choice. Though my conviction on this subject is strong.
The perspective of a pro-lifer is that a fetus is equivalent to a human being. So it is viewed that all these abortions are essentially genocide on the mass scale. Such is the reason such strong convictions are developed on the subject by pro-lifers. If this is your perspective, how can you not feel ever so strongly about it and want to be vocal in your opposition to abortion?
Yet I understand that this thinking could be flawed. I have dozens of outfits, all made probably in a sweatshop halfway across the world. I pay taxes, and my taxes pay for bombs that bomb people. So, do I accuse all taxpayers of beings mass murderers? Do I accuse people who wear clothes of being child abusers? Probably not.
Personally, though I am a pro-lifer, I have the unique perspective of having aborted my own child with my own hands. (In Mexico where it's legal) I’m mentally ill you see, and my wife at the time didn’t want that to be passed on. Do pro-choice people believe that abortion is a mercy killing? Saving the child from poor circumstances and possibly disease. Are we allowed to do these mercy killings, like, is it right to kill out of mercy. I am deeply conflicted.
Bodily autonomy. What can I do when my child is in my wife’s body? Her body, her choice. When I fret about the abortion in the present day, my current partner will remind me these things.
- I had no control over what my wife did with her body
- there was nothing I could have done to prevent it, as my wife had decided what was best for her
- I was not ready to be a father, and could not have provided well for my child

I have not fully accepted these points yet, but I must I think.
I just wanted to offer my perspective and what I have learned on the subject. I would like to get some pro choice perspectives on the topic of abortion.
I think the issue is deeply divisive, at least here in the USA. Whole political and religious divides are because of abortion. It turns people against each other. Let’s understand each other instead.

I'm also pro-life, more so than most people who carry that label. I'm against capital punishment, I'm against war, I'm against letting people die in the street because they don't have health insurance. I'm for comprehensible sex education and for easy access to birth control.
And I'm for the right of women to choose whether they want to carry a pregnancy to term (within reasonable limits). The last one seems contradictory at first but when we look at the global statistics it looks as if having the right leads to fewer women making use of it.
The anti-choicers are failing hard when it comes to being effectively pro life. But they win at misogyny and it makes me wonder if that is the real goal.