Forum Post: I understand the arguments supporting abortion rights, but I have a question
Posted 12 years ago on Feb. 13, 2012, 7:49 p.m. EST by craigdangit
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for the people who say they want abortion to be "safe, rare, and legal". My question is, why do you want it to be rare? If there is nothing morally objectionable to it, what difference does it make how often it happens? That being said, I understand why people want abortion rights legal, and I don't want people to regale me with purely pro-abortion arguments which is beside the point.
I think abortion is morally objectionable but I also think that a young single mother, who already has other kids that she is unable to take care of, getting pregnant is morally objectionable. For that matter, any woman who allows herself to become pregnant and doesn't want to be a mother is morally objectionable. I would like all 3 of those scenarios to be rare.
Why does the male get a free pass.
For that matter, why is it when they find a baby in a dumpster is everybody looking for the mother, but nobody is looking for the father?
These are not rhetorical questions, but rather they cut to the heart of the problem. In a country with an abortion rate in the millions, why are so many men creating children that they don't intend to or can't afford to raise? Why are there zero consequences for them?
I agree that males need to be responsible but at the end of the day it is still the woman's body. Is it a double standard? Sure it is, but it is a double standard that evolved long ago and is seen in almost every species. It isn't going to just go away because we have the cognitive ability to now recognize it is a double standard.
Ultimately it is the woman's body who makes the baby, it is where all the action is. She is the only one who knows for sure what is going in her body, whether it be a pill, a sponge, a ring, or a penis.
There are plenty of wrong headed beliefs that evolved long ago that we have discarded. Why are you hanging on to this one?
Men are not mere animals. The majority of them have self control. We need to stop giving a free pass to the ones who don't.
It is not a belief, it is an evolved biologic trait. Females are much more invested in reproduction in nearly every species. That is why the woman, and only the woman, has the final say in something like an abortion. Just like a woman is free to make her own decisions regarding her body and fetus, she is also ultimately responsible for what goes into her vagina.
How does "free to make her own decisions" yet "morally objectionable" fit in the same head?
But more importantly, why would something be morally objectionable for one parent, but not for the other?
If you are asking if it is morally objectionable for someone to father a child and then take off, the answer is yes.
Well, first you have to find the mother in order to determine if she knows who the father is, right?
Wanting abortion to be safe is wanting women to be safe. Wanting it to be rare only indicates how morally difficult the issue is. There is no conflict.
No, I don't think there is a conflict between the "safe" and "rare" wording, I have always been of the opinion that if something is a right, it cannot be exercised enough. That's what I am having trouble understanding, if I were a right winger and someone said they wanted abortion "rare", I would say "let me help you make it rare". It always seemed like people who say they want it rare are paying into the hands of the anti-choice crowd.
Nobody wants the right to an abortion exercised often! That's saying you want a lot of abortions. Do you really mean that?
I'm saying it's not my choice or decision how often it takes place. If a woman wants to use abortion as her primary method of pregnancy control, who are we to stop her? If she, or they, want to have many, it is their right and I hope they get as many as they want. I'm not saying it should happen any more often than women want it to, but it should happen any and every time a woman decides for it to. I think we agree on this, right?
You are confusing was is a right with what is desirable. NO woman in her right mind uses abortion as her preferred method of birth control. That it is her right to do so, and safely, is not in question. But it is a painful, soul crushing, awful thing to do. That's why the RIGHT is upheld while the WISH is for its rarity.
Ask any woman you know who's had an abortion and ask her if she wants to have another one. You'll have your answer right there (if she doesn't tear your head off first.)
Anyway, enough! You have your answer from me. Do with it what you will.
Obama is right,every woman should be required to have an abortion. Too many people,the earth is dying,too much pollution.
Doesn't it burn down there when you blow that much smoke out of your ass?
So, an abortion is sucking the brain matter out of an premature (hopefully) fetus to eliminate its ability to survive.
A lobotomy is the mechanical retardation of a human being.
Culturally, the lobotomy is reserved for those deemed unstable, violent, insane criminals so dangerous to society that their very person must be changed/ eliminated for the betterment of the whole (i.e. conditionally performed operation).
Morality is relative. The overall collective cultural morality is abstract, presumably free of objectivity, opinion, and for the greater good.
Infrequency of abortions would mean precision- a particular group of people would be allowed to get abortions. Who are they and why is it imperative for this group allowed access to this procedure?
I recently gave up sweets/coffee. There are all the reasons in the world why I shouldn't eat a gallon of ice-cream every night, and I finally woke up and realized that I don't have to anymore and stopped. That being said, having 2 lbs of chocolates that I gave my wife sitting next to me is very tempting. If my house was free of sweets, my temptation may still be as intense, but my willingness to drive all the way to the supermarket is miniscule compared to my desire to reach out my hand and grab a chocolate.
Freedom is inherently binding- just a vague concept that is muddled more so than "good" and "evil". Freedoms are the limitations of the scope of actions a person can do. Once a freedom is "given", it can be altered, or taken away.
To be unbound is to be malleable, easily influenced, untempered. Learned subjects are not questioned, but taken as facts, and unquestioningly repeated as though information and opinions are inseparable.
The old slogan was Safe and Legal Abortions. The "malquoted" slogan is to inject a new direction for people to concentrate on, worry about it's implications, and change the "freedom".
The reason why abortions are in high demand is the economic inequality, education inequality, and inequality of rights that "freedoms" have ensnared certain people to be other peoples' dogs, slaves, prisoners.
Why is this question even in debate?
It's an invasive medical procedure. So naturally, one would want that to be rare. And hopefully not necessary, with prevention. Do people want for frequent invasive medical procedures?
This has nothing to do with OWS.
This has everything to do with OWS.
From the start, OWS has called itself a revolution that intended to replace what it considers our corrupt representative government with direct democracy and decision making by consensus.
Have any look at the abortion debate and tell me if you expect there to be any kind of consensus in your lifetime. Protesters want to scrap SCOTUS over the Citizens United decision, but many of those same protesters are probably thrilled with the Roe decision.
Despite it's faults, this system we have of representative democracy is the best system that any collection of human beings has come up with, to date, in the history of humanity.
This has everything to do with OWS.
It should be rare, simply because there are descent contraceptives available, because there is a responsibility factor on two sides, because for every medical procedure there are risks.
I'd also like to see cancer treatment be rare, because cancer should be rare. Don't mean I'm going to get it.
I've heard that argument used to liken the procedure to a root canal. You want a safe treatment that removes the pain but you wouldn't wish the procedure on anyone. The desire for rarity is, in that case, not predicated on ascribing any moral significance to the unborn.
We are human beings, however. So most of us don't think of a child as the equivalent of a bum tooth, so the desire for 'safe, legal and rare' is something of an appeal for solidarity with those who are horrified by 2nd and 3rd trimester procedures.
I'm full spectrum pro-life, opposing unjust war, all instances of the death penalty and most abortions. I'd like it to be rare as well. I think the road to that is social change before legal change.
But, no one ever says they want root canals to be "rare". Or any other medical procedure, for that matter.
Because no crazy religious fundamentalists are trying ban root canals, and dictate the relationship between a dentist and his patient while forcing their religious beliefs on everyone in the nation, regardless of other peoples beliefs and constitutional right to have them.
First of all I'd like to recommend the book "Sex, Mom, & God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics - and How I learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway" by Frank Schaeffer, the son of some well known evangelical authors and missionaries. He explains the origins of the Religious Right, his supportive role it the formation, and how abortion because a key Republican issue. It has not always been this way. After reading this book I am mostly convinced that the original error with abortion laws in the US is the definition of what illness or circumstance merits an abortion. Check out the case of Doe vs. Bolton which came as a response to lack of clarity in Roe vs. Wade. Maybe some of this wording does need to be changed to make some people happy. Also, I think most advocates for legal abortion do not want to make it as common as using condoms. It seems generally accepted that it is less positive than a birth control barrier like a condom because... it is more invasive, it is more dangerous for the woman, it is more person and spiritually intense no matter the woman or doctor's beliefs, because indeed, there is life forming in her body and she is deciding to stop its growth.
I personally don't know if I could undergo an abortion. I am pro-choice because the government doesn't have the right to make a total rule about what is allowed in the hospital room, in a woman's body. However having read a lot of anti-abortion material I can empathize - not politically or legally, but ethically and spiritually. At what point is that zygote, then fetus, too far into its process to be aborted ethically?
To a large extent I think the moral weight of such a decision rests on the pregnant person. She will live with the consequences, if it is truly a selfish decision in some way. It is not for us to decide.
I do think there is something to be said for how late is too late. Maybe there is a line that can be drawn. But how do we fairly draw that line? And how can we get our slow, hierarchical, bureaucratic, arguing, republic of a government to ever successfully pass something of the sort? I have to admit it seems like there are bigger problems right now...
Whoa. You beat the first guy's record, he went three sentences without answering my question, you took four paragraphs and didn't answer my question.
Yes she did. You apparently just dont like the answer.
The abortion "debate" comes out every election. It is a divisive tool of the control freaks to distract the masses from the real issues.
Abortions will happen whether they are legal or not legal. No argument.
Ah, but you didn't answer my question. Thanks for playing.
I did address the question.
It will never be rare, whether it is legal or not legal.
Now it's time for you to address the reality that this same "debate" surfaces every time there is a need to divide the populace into fueding sides.
I note that this is your second attempt in two days to encourage this division of the voting populace.
What was my first attempt?
Okay, so abortions will never be rare. So why do abortion rights activists fight for a cause that will never be achieved in that case?
Because some people are working very hard to take that right away. Sometimes one has to fight simply to keep a right.
Okay, that sort of makes sense, but the way I look at rights, they cannot be exercised enough. No matter how bad a procedure may seem, if it is the direction the woman decides to take, I still don't see how it can ever be something that should be desired to be rare. It is like pro choice advocates are paying into the arguments of right wingers, if I were a right winger, and someone told me they wanted abortion rare, I would say "let me help you keep it rare, then". Thoughts?
No. No matter how you look at it, abortion is an awful thing for any woman to have to undergo. What's more, a fetus is not nothing; at the very least, it is a potential human being. Wanting abortion to be rare is like wanting the need for cancer treatment to be rare. Wanting it to be a right is like wanting cancer treatment to be a right. Pro-choice is not pro-abortion; nobody in their right mind is pro-abortion, everybody with compassion for women is pro-choice.
Sore winners?
The issues of legality and morality are two separate issues. What Roe vs Wade was intended to represent is the absolute limit of our tolerance.
Turning the clock back to the days of self-induced abortion is definitely NOT a good idea. I know because I was there.
I think terminating a pregnancy is morally objectionable. I think bringing a child into a world where he/she will not be loved and provided for is even more objectionable. An unloved kid will suffer for years and years. For all we know, the rejected fetus may not suffer at all.