Why I'm Pro Choice

I know a lot of Fakku'ers agree with me on being pro choice, but I am also aware there are a significant amount of people that disagree with the stance as well, and that's perfectly alright.

I'm also of the volition that there are those that are sitting on the fence on the issue...just don't know what to think about it, what opinion to make. So I made this topic top explain why it is I, individually, maintain that the stance of pro choice is the preferred stance in the abortion debate.

There has already been topics concerning abortion before, and the polls usually ask the same question: Abortion? Yay or nay?

So I've changed it up a little. Whoever has an opinion on this already probably won't be easily swayed by anything I've got to say, whether they agree with me or not, so instead, for those that agree with me I precede by asking whether you find this educational in any way, that is, if I've added any reasons you didn't already have, and to those that are on the fence, or don't agree with me, whether or not anything I am about to say has done anything to influence your stance on the subject.

We'll begin with my first reason, and the most obvious one, and the namesake of the title: A woman has the right to the domain of her own body.

This is why a woman is allowed to kill a rapist in self defense for instance. And a woman has the right to expel that which she doesn't give consent to be within her, from her body. This includes a fetus. I'll go into more detail on that near the end of the post.

Part 2 is one of the big ones. Personhood.

There's no doubt that a fertilized zygote is a living organism. The trouble is that one side(pro-life) wants to label that egg a person. This section will be why I feel a fetus is not a person.

We'll start with history. And surprisingly enough, that history will start with the bible. Many people think the bible in some way says that abortion's wrong, but no. It reflects some ancient laws that RECOMMENDS abortion in cases of suspected infidelity(Numbers 5:11-29) of course the bible also recommends infanticide in psalms 1:37 and child rape even in genesis 19. So it's not the best book about morality concerning children.

Medieval Christianity treated abortion as if it were theft, rather than murder. The penalty for assaulting a woman who's pregnant and killing the fetus and not her were tantamount to stealing a valuable peace of property, rather than the murder of a person.

British Common Law drew the line at what was called "Quickening: or rather the moment where women felt the fetuses move. Quickening was also referred to as the moment that the 'soul' officially entered the body of the fetus.

Nobody buys into that anymore that I know of, but the thing about Quickening is that it DOES seem to be about a point where one can draw the line. That's what we're looking for, where to draw the line?

So some people have decided to draw the line at conception. Prior to conception it's clearly not a person, and it's hard to say where throughout gestation it becomes a person, so let's just draw it at the MOMENT of conception. But the thing is: there is no moment of conception. It's a 24 process. So you can't even point to a point in THAT that says 'it's a person'.

You might say, "What about right after that's done then?" Well that won't work either. Twinning occurs 2 weeks after conception. So how do we determine that there's a person at conception when it could easily just become two different people weeks later?

So then, you might ask, "Well what do YOU call a 'person'?" Easy, a person, I would say, is a conscious entity. Or rather, as an old moral philosophy quote says: a person is an experiencing subject of life. Persons aren't just biologically alive, but biographically alive as well, that is that there is a story going on in their heads, events are being categorized in some way. The capacities for this subjectivity are neurologically determined, and while there's an awful lot about the brain and consciousness we don't know, a brain that's developed is required, in the least, to have this capacity, specifically the limbic system and pre frontal cortex, which is what have been determined are in some ways the parts of our brains that hold our consciousness. These parts of the brain don't develop until the third trimester, which is after the point in which just about all abortions in the united states are done anyway. And the only reason a third trimester abortion is ever performed is for medical emergency reasons(mother's life is in danger).

There is a fundamental developmental difference that affects moral responsibility between a human that's born, and a fetus that's not, and I'm of the position that most people agree with me.

I'll end this section with a thought experiment: Imagine you're in a fertility clinic, and it starts burning to the ground. While you stumble around trying to get out you come across a room with an unconscious 5 year old, and 5 fertilized eggs. You can only save either the 5 year old, or the eggs, you can't save both, which do you choose? My guess is the 5 year old.



Moving onto point 3. There's no pain for the fetus.

This is more a counter argument to the idea that this is in any way an 'inhumane' thing to do and that we're killing the fetus violently and causing it to die a bloody messy horrible and painful death and blah blah blah.

Firstly, most abortions aren't even done surgically, there are pills taken that are a chemical abortion.

Secondly, evidence tells us the fetus doesn't feel pain until 24 weeks into its gestation period. http://www.rcog.org.uk/news/rcog-release-rcog-updates-its-guidance

Considering this, we also take into account that 99% of all abortions happen...PRIOR to this point in the fetus' gestation period.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/ib14.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,880,00.html

http://www.operationrescue.org/about-abortion/abortions-in-america/

And 2 of those sources are heavily politically interested in having statistics arguing against abortion's favor.



Here I'll expand on an earlier point, my original point about a woman having the right to choose, with a classic thought experiment: J.J. Thompson's 'violinist' argument.

Let's grant, for a moment, that fetus' are people.

Now imagine you go to an opera, and while you're there you black out. When you wake up you're hooked up to the violinist that was playing there. He's connected to you and using your liver. It turns out you were captured by the music lover's association to keep this violinist alive.

Do you have a moral obligation to stick with this? Or is it perfectly ok to disconnect yourself, and go seek help?



AND NOW FOR THE FUN PART!

TL;DR
Reason 1. Women have the right to choose what to do with their own bodies(this is still true, by the by, even if the fetus were considered a 'person'.)
Reason 2. Fetuses aren't at all people, so there's no reason to give them a 'right' to anything.
Reason 3. The vast majority of Fetuses don't at all feel pain when aborted.

... Is this a debate on abortion again? Ask Tegumi to lock this one.

pretty standard views on abortion there (nothing new really...), but what are your views on after-birth abortions?

like is argued in this article on the viewpoint of a couple ethicists from oxford.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html

I agree with the premise they give that the babies aren't "persons". However that doesn't render them morally irrelevant. After reading the article it seemed pretty obvious the whole thing is simply a reductio ad absurdum argument against the 'personhood' argument in favor of illegalizing abortion.

When arguing that a fetus isn't a person in favor of abortion rights it's not so much "They're not a person, THEREFORE it's ok to kill them." That's not the argument. It's more a counter against the pro-lifers that attempt to superimpose moral rights onto things that are, for all intents and purposes...chunks of cells that can't do anything but parasite off of their mothers, and would die outside of the womb. And pro-lifers attempt to do that by assigning 'personhood' status to them.

Without personhood status, you can't impose the 'right to life' to something. However there are other factors that cause something to be morally relevant than personhood. Take into account that this child is now able to live outside of its mother's womb. Independent livability means that there becomes no reason beyond...say...spite, to abort it. There's no danger to the woman, she doesn't suffer anymore from carrying the child, she doesn't have any health problems that aren't now in the healing phase that will be stopped by this child, in ESSENCE...this child is not being a parasite.

So what reason could be given for aborting the child except for, say, spite? The mother could say, "I can't afford him." but this was an option offered earlier, and there's a far more effective, far cheaper, far safer way of going about protecting your livelihood economically than carrying the baby to full term and THEN saying it needs to be aborted. So clearly the mother would be disingenuous to say as much. And most other excuses would be pretty much the same. Why carry a baby to full term, deliver it, and then ask it to be killed aside from violent, immoral reasons?

The response to that question might be, "But it can't be immoral if it doesn't have the right for me to deprive it of in the first place." But it of course can be immoral to kill something without the right to life, providing other factors I've mentioned above, as well as the fact that this baby can most certainly feel and experience pain, and causing pain, or suffering of any sort, on anything is necessarily an immoral action in any moral model, at the very least without something to make up for it, and nothing can be shown to make up for that cause.

So if the effort here is to say, "Well fine, we'll say person hood doesn't apply, but then it doesn't apply to newborns either." Then...sure. No more personhood...for either side. I'm perfectly ok with that.

But now there are other arguments. The argument in the professional philosophical community hasn't been about person hood for years. Again, I typed it above, but look up the 'violinist' thought experiment.

Edit: Real quick note- As a short and sweet counter to the above ad absurdum, the attempt is to equate a baby newborn and a fetus because neither of them are 'persons'. But...then that's a horrible argument, because saying what something is not doesn't at all explain what they are. So what IS a baby newborn, and why is it different from a fetus? Because they are certainly different, and a good question is how to figure out what those characteristics exactly are...but by saying two things are the same status because of both of them LACKING a characteristic...is...philosophically inept, at best.

I just read the violinist argument. And I think it's not a good comparison to make. There is a very important difference I see between the cases. A baby in a mother's womb is very different from another person glued to you like a Siamese twin. The degree of suffering is very very different. The events leading to pregnancy and the violinist case are very different too. One involves, to a good extent, choice by the pregnant person. We can argue that the pregnancy itself wasn't intended, but it merely meant she was not taking enough precaution against it before engaging in acts that pregnancy is the natural consequence of. To step on the fetus' right to continued life and care in that case screams utter irresponsibility to me. For the violinist case, there was no choice from the one the kidney is being used. The person also did not do anything close to the events that would lead to him being forced into such a situation. He was completely forced into it, and he has no knowledge that such an event is possible. It is acceptable for him to exercise his rights since the simple fact that he was forced into the situation means his rights was violated.

Unless if we're talking about abortion due to rape. Which I'm pretty sure not what we're discussing now.

Lock it up and sell the thread in a pawn shop.
Nobody gives a hoot about pro-choice. We want everybody to live to enjoy anime/hentai/ect.

Well, I agree, for one thing, the person glued to you is...a person.



In the analogy, I made up for that. Sex would be analogous to going and seeing the opera. That was the desire, that was the intended pleasure, sex/seeing the opera. The UNINTENDED consequence was a baby/getting strapped to a violinist.



Alllrighty. I'll go ahead and fix the analogy to fit your objection here...but I don't think it's gonna fix the problem at all. You say that the woman didn't intend to get pregnant, but too bad, natural consequences, therefore it's her responsibility to birth that baby, and that's the difference between getting kidnapped and strapped to a guy, and having an unintended thing happen to you. Fine. Here's the analogy again, making up for that.

Say you read the paper. In the paper there's an article about a bunch of music lovers going around and kidnapping people and strapping them to instrumentalists to keep them alive.

But, in your head, that opera is just too damned good not to risk it. Besides, the liklihood is so low!(We'll say as low as...getting pregnant even though a condom is used and the woman's on the pill) But, surprise surprise, it happens anyway.

I don't think it's changed...I still think you have full moral rights to disconnect yourself form that violinist and say, "Fuck you later." Or do you disagree?

I do agree that we can say fuck the violinist. But I'm still against abortion without any strong reason. And I am hoping you're not serious about the comparison.

Sex is biologically to produce offspring, for one. Going to opera is at best an immediate pleasure, something I see as very trivial to say the least. Alright, for the purpose of the discussion I'll simply accept the pleasures, and the need for those pleasures, of sex and opera, one is a direct result of our hormones etc and the other is just a matter of taste, are equal.

So, a question. This is the main problem of your argument to me. Are you really putting natural insemination and kidnapping and forced surgery on the same level? If that's what you're trying to say, then I admit I would be on constant guard if i ever need to get involved with you. I'm aware that my thoughts are all over the place, and I'm sure my argument is not well structured but... let's try giving an analogy.

Feminism. The article I read mentioned things about career opportunity etc. And how women are disadvantaged because of their disadvantages due to gender roles in a traditional family further preventing their chances in those fields. All is fine with the article, but when they started talking about raising their children as "unpaid labor", no matter how true it is in the strictest sense, I think they already lose sight of what makes marriage and family is such a beautiful thing, the feeling that makes life worth living.

I hope it reaches you, the message.

...It's a serious philosophical analogy used in the professional field of ethics. In fact it's one of the cornerstones of why abortion is allowed. Using this analogy it's been determined that even if the fetus was a person...it wouldn't matter, and the mother would still have full rights to abort. As far as a 'strong' reason, I wouldn't know what would constitute a 'strong' enough reason. But how about this: There is ALWAYS a risk that carrying a baby to term could kill you. Is that a good enough reason?



I'm going to do an obligatory "So?" That doesn't mean we have to use it as such. In fact, that fact is as irrelevant as "The sky is blue." Doesn't matter that sex makes babies biologically. Sex with condoms tends not to biologically produce babies. What's your point?



Or maybe someone sexually gets off on opera music, so they go to the opera for a thrill? That...really wouldn't affect whether or not they're obligated to keep the violinist, and we both know that.



So the argument's problem is that the analogy seems absurd. And it seems absurd because the unintended consequences of having sex and getting a baby, even though you didn't want to, are not the same as the unintended consequences of going to see an opera and get kidnapped and strapped to a violinist. While it's certainly true there's a lot more of an 'ick' factor, the point of comparison- a woman being asked to suck it up and carry the baby full term regardless of what she thinks, and you being asked to suck it up and keep that violinist alive regardless of what you think...are indeed the same.



Mmmm, if the message is that a natural process is a beautiful thing you think ought to be cherished(having children, getting married, having a family) well...great...but that's literally, and solely, your subjective opinion. I personally don't want to have kids. Ever. So clearly we're opposed on that front.

And in essence what you said is, "Yeah, they're right that they don't get paid enough in the workplace, and they don't get paid at all for really hard work in being a mother, but they should just be happy they're a mother!" Well...they ARE.

When women complain that they're not paid what they could be paid for doing mother work in a workplace equivalent setting, they're not actually asking for paychecks, they're asking for respect, which I am inclined to give them.

I myself am a feminist. I think women, and men, should have completely equal rights, be talked about in the same context, and all that good stuff.

What I'm getting from you is that the natural order of things is beautiful and should be cherished, and all I'm telling you is that's a naturalist's fallacy.

Yes, it is a naturalist's fallacy. I'm aware of that all along, which is why I don't say it is morally wrong, but simply something very unrecommended. It's like being a totally uptight person. It's not wrong, but it's also very unpleasant to deal with. Subjective? Yes.

Also, I need to point out, that while I wouldn't call myself a feminist due to my opinion that their "equal rights" are not exactly equal, I do support the concept of equal rights regardless of gender. But I also see it as completely queer that they'd talk about things that is ideally voluntary and something both sides should work together willingly. Discussing about the distribution of workload? Very good. Thinking of it as "unpaid labor" (presumably with resentment) and demanding for an egalitarian pattern? ...no.

Morals defined too strictly, and we risk losing all the virtues that leads us to the urge to do and be good by ourselves and as ourselves.

[color=#2e1a6b]I liked that verse from Numbers 5:11-29, it's incredibly useful when someone tries argue against pro-choice with the bible.

My main problem with pro-choice is that they contradict themselves for their own convenience:

In our legal system, "It is possible but rare for a double-murder charge to be enforced in cases of homicide in which a pregnant woman is murdered, thereby killing her unborn fetus" (source)

Pro choice supporters say that this is a good law, because it protects the woman's right to choose.


So basically, When one wants to have an abortion, she can have one, and claim that it was not murder. But if that same fetus was murdered along with the pregnant girl, they claim that the fetus was murdered. Pro choice has an inconsistent definition of a fetus, which conveniently changes to fit what we want.

My feeling is that making abortion illegal will not stop women from getting it. The only practical way to reduce abortion is to make contraception more widely available and reduce the number of women who feel they have no other choice. Unfortunately those are opposed to abortion also oppose birth control...and in essence try to enforce a abstinence only solution, which is not practical. People are horny, and nothing is going to change that.

I'm against abortion simply because a good friend of mine was adopted from his parents who nearly aborted him. It's a good enough reason for me :\

I see too much black and white in this discussion there's more gray in this than most people seem to perceive.
Tbh I think George Carlin put it best that these pro-choice folk care more about an unborn fetus but when you're born into squalid conditions, poor living standards these people won't give a damn about you.

I believe in choice, but I do not support abortion, not even in the circumstance of rape. I just don't think I have the right to tell a woman what not to do with her body.

...wait what?

You want choice, but no choice BESIDE having a kid in any pregnancy?
That's not choice, pal. Letting a woman do what she likes with her body includes the right to abort.

I know how this will end.

I answered before and I will not answer again.

If rape was the case then abort it, it is not my choice to force a decision on a young women's mind. ( Even though I am against it )

Everybody makes decisions in their own life, whether the women keeps the baby or not, abort it or raise it, it all depends on the female.

Abortion shouldn't be discussed with men, I believe it is a discussion made for only female fakku users, I feel like I am stepping in a personal matter here.

I'm leaning towards pro-life. Rape, in my opinion, is the only exception. Also, the "violinist" argument seems like a really weak defense of the position. You know. Just sayin'.

I don't support abortion, but I'm pro choice.

So yo don't like the idea of abortion, but you still think it's a womans choice?

Disclaimer: If I'm missing any letters, it's cause my kyboard is fucking up... tink I need new bateries... actuall I'll fix that now, it's pissing me off tha much.
But anyway, I am Pro-choice. If you get pregnant by accident, and can't afford (this is much better. stupid ba- oh fuck, now I have a cat sitting on my lap...) the upkeep of a child, or it's going to be brought up into an abusive family, or something else equally dark, they should have the right to abort.

Let's put it this way: You and your girlfriend are having sex unprotected, it feels good. 3 months later you find out she's pregnant. Neither of you have jobs, your parents aren't overly wealthy, so they couldn't look after it if they wanted, they are running full time jobs 6-7 days a week to keep themselves out of debt.
Would you bring up a child in that house? You wouldn't be able to afford it. and if you dare say 'I'll just live on the dole' I will punch you in the dick and steal your fucking money. fuck you, dole bludging fuck.

It is the womans decision. If she feels she is comfortable keeping it, that's fine, unless as I stated above, your income wouldn't be able to support it... In all honesty, I'm just against people having children early in life really >.>

But yeah, Pro choice. I think pro life is stupid. It's been proved that a zygote or whatever isn't a person, and doesn't have any motor functions or brain or something yet, so it's not killing a person. As op said, the 'killing a person' theory is started my mostly religious hypocrites. They killed month old babies all the time in the bible.

/rant