Today is the 34th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, and also blog for choice day.* The topic is supposed to be ‘why am I pro-choice’. It seems a little trite, I’m pro-choice because I believe women are people, I’m pro-choice because I want to decide when I have a child, I’m pro-choice because I have two younger sisters, I’m pro-choice because I trust other women to make choices about their own lives, I’m pro-choice because sex should be awesome, I’m pro-choice because of all the women who have died and are dying from illegal abortions, I’m pro-choice because of all the women who have died and are dying because they couldn’t get an illegal abortion, I’m pro-choice because parenting is a hard important job and must be voluntary, I’m pro-choice because I know how hard women fought in New Zealand to ensure women would have access to abortion.
It probably says a lot about my life that, for me, those things go without saying. I have met with people who oppose abortion and regarded them as slightly quaint (or hated them passionately depending on the circumstances).** I got over a guy I’d had a crush on for way too long when I discovered he wasn’t pro-choice enough for me.
What I want to say about abortion isn’t anything to do with what I think the laws should be.*** There have been two things I’ve written about frequently on this blog the first that access is as important as rights and that the right to choose has to also include the right to continue the pregnancy.
Brownfemipower has some great posts about the US National Advocates for Pregnant Women conference (which she’s at at the moment). What they really made me think about is how much abortion is normally treated as a stand-alone issue, and how counter-productive that is.
It’s all pretty irrelevant in New Zealand; I’d guess we have more women fighting other reproductive issues (social welfare, medical care, women in prisons, violence against women) than abortion. But if I wanted to change that, if I had the energy to start fighting back then I would try and work with people who didn’t just want to focus on abortion laws (although our abortion laws are a piece of shit and I will not rest till I have danced on the grave of every man who voted for them), but saw that almost all issues that effect women’s lives, effect reproduction. We won’t be able to make meaningful choices until we create a very different world.
*I must confess to finding this a tad annoying – abortion rights don’t begin and end in the US, but you get used to it.
**I once had a half hour argument about abortion on a peace vigil with an ex-nun.
*** Although for the record I’m really hard case about abortion law and don’t accept any legal restrictions for any reason, don’t ever think it’s anyone’s business but the woman whose making the decision, and think that if you don’t like decisions people are making to terminate their pregnancies you should change the conditions under which they make the decision, rather than tut-tut about the decision itself.
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It’s all about taking away your right to live your life as you choose.
I’ve surfed the net since about four o’clock this morning, you are the first to point out this anniverary. It ain’t enough that these bastas want to run my life…
It ain’t about Roe v Wade, it’s about runnin’ you girls’ lives. Ain’t what I want to do.
Get up, Stand up; Get up for your rights.
It’s all about taking away your right to live your life as you choose.
With no consideration toward the life of the aborted fetus? Sounds pretty one sided to me.
Just as a quick note, Blog for Choice Day starts Monday (today). I was confused about the lack of posts yesterday, and I posted mine. Then I spotted the date on the little image didn’t match the one on my calendar… lol
Sylvia and Thomas – geography means I’m always going to be first for things like this – New Zealand is a day ahead of America.
Ron (and anyone who wants to respond ot Ron) please go to one of the many other places on the internet where you can debate the morality of abortion.
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So, can we make this a big “why I’m prochoice” thread? that would be fun.
Why i’m pro choice
1) because I think it is better if we have complete bodily autonomy. i believe in abortion rights. i also believe in allowing voluntary organ sales, allowing folks to kill themselves who want to do so, and pretty much anything which a sane person wants to do to their body. i don’t think we are “holy” or “sacrosanct”.
2) because i can see no way off the slippery slope that comes from compromise. So i don’t.
I don’t claim pretend that the fetus doesn’t die (it does). And I don’t pretend that it doesn’t bother me, in that (just like everyone I know who has had an abortion) I wish abortions happened less often. And unlike many pro-choice folks, i don’t view abortion rights as “fundamental” mostly because I tend not to accept any rights as “fundamental”; i’m more relativistic than that.
But I’ll be damned if I compromise. I am firmly prochoice.
I’m pro-choice because every child deserves to be a wanted child, every woman deserves autonomy over her body, every person deserves to decide for herself or himself whether to be a parent.
Maia, please publish the date/s of key reproductive rights legislation in New Zealand, and I will happily Blog for Choice on that/those date/s as well. Can’t have too much of it!
I am pro choice because I believe firmly that women are people, and that all people have a right to their own choices and bodily autonomy.
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I set a trackback to this post from my own Blog for Choice Day post, but it is for some reason not posting here. So here ’tis: I’m pro-choice because I opposed slavery.
I was pro-life. Then I spent the last few months on Alas, and learned the horror women were prepared to go through to to get an abortion. Women are stabbing themselves in the stomach.
I’m beyond convinced.
I was pro-life for religious reasons, then pro-choice because a friend nearly died after she was denied an abortion she needed, then pro-life because I saw too many pictures of little fetuses with tiny baby fingers and tiny baby toes, then pro-choice after I finally stopped being so lazy by listening to other people and sat down and read everything I could find on the subject.
I don’t see changing my mind again on the subject.
Like someone else up thread, I’d like to see fewer abortions. I’d like for there to be better access to contraception, better sex ed that includes educating children that they don’t have to say “Yes” to sex to be cool, better education about the expenses of raising children so that people will wait, and so on, all of which, I think, can be used to reduce the number of abortions without ever having to tell a woman “You can’t do that”.
You’ve inspired me Maia:
http://sexandthesushi.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-am-pro-choicedeal-with-it.html
I’m pro-choice because behind every lump of undifferentiated fetal cells are a few more undifferentiated fetal cells. And around them is a woman, who is just a bit more person-ish, from my perspective.
There needs to be better education all round.
I am against surgical abortion ie the cutting up, or sucking apart of a foetus or baby who can feel pain. Yet I realise that there is a demand for abortion and so all abortions should be medical, ie RU486 or prostaglandin etc.
What if after you had had an abortion and afterwards you looked into the science of foetal pain and you were horrified.
http://www.justthefacts.org
The baby is inside your body, attatched to your body, but not part of your body, for 9 months out of your whole life then you can do as wish and give the baby away for adoption.
What if you had had an abortion then stared at you aborted baby in the face, and thereafter been so consumed with grief that you are not capable of having a normal life, like me. Do not laugh at me or attack me because I am not a pro life propagandist, I am a real person who is trying to live through this.
Sarah, I think its awful that you’ve experienced such regret.
But I think it’s even more awful because (as you say) you’re not a pro life propagandist; instead, you’re someone who has been taken in by pro life propaganda. The overwhelming majority of abortions happen long before there’s any chance that a fetus can feel pain.
In August
19952005, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a review of the scientific literature on fetal pain (and a couple of related subjects). What legitimate research has found is that fetuses are not physically capable of feeling pain until sometime after the 28th week. (Which isn’t surprising — humans can’t feel pain, or anything else, without a working cerebral cortex).This article — which is, admittedly, on a pro-choice site, but it thoroughly footnotes the sources of all its factual claims — does a good job outlining the reasons why the vast majority of abortions are completely pain-free for the fetus. From the article:
Going back to what Sarah wrote:
I’m sorry you’re so consumed with grief — that’s really awful. But I don’t think your grief justifies outlawing surgical abortion for everyone, as you propose.
The baby is inside your body, attatched to your body, but not part of your body, for 9 months out of your whole life then you can do as wish and give the baby away for adoption.
You’re thinking of farm animals. If you take a calf away from its mother, the cow will bellow for a few days, and then the calf and cow will forget all about one another. It doesn’t work that way for humans, setting aside the whole issue of what happens during the nine months of pregnancy.
I’m not laughing at you, sarah, but what Ampersand said is true. Please seek counseling to help you through this–from a person who will be sympathetic, not someone interested in using your pain as a club against you.
There’s also a lot of pain associated with being a person whose mother never saw them, who was taken away at the moment of birth, placed with strangers to nurse them until they are placed with a “family”.
Then they are placed with a family who, years later, say things like, “if you aren’t blood, get out of the picture.” Of course, they mean in-laws and berate you when you slink away.
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I will be blunt. I am pro-life. I am a girl. I am making a truth claim not a preference claim.
I wish leave religion and emotion out of this.
I am here to put forth a logical reason why abortion should be illegal.
There is only one true argument concerning abortion: What is the unborn?
The debate is not over choice and who gets to decide.
You cannot ask “Can I kill this?” until you answer “What is it?”
“If the unborn aren’t human, then no justification for elective abortion is necessary. If they are human, then no justification for abortion is adequate.” Gregory Koukl
Scientific Evidence:
Bio-genesis-living things reproduce after their own kind.
How is it possible for human parents to produce an offspring that is not human, but later becomes human?
Some say that the unborn are human but not persons.
“What is the difference between a human and a person?”
“Have you ever met a human that is not a person?”
Philosophical Evidence:
There are only four differences between a fetus and an adult:
Size
Level of Development
Environment
Degree of Dependency
1. Size
-large people are not more human than small people.
2. Level of Development
-a four-year-old is not less human than a fourteen-year-old.
-are you less human than your parents because they are more developed?
3. Environment
-a newborn in an incubator is not less human than a child outside of the womb.
-a person in a building is not less human than a person outside of the building.
-change in environment does not change your humanity.
4. Degree of Dependency
-people on insulin or reliant on oxygen tanks are less viable but not less human.
“For any physical change to your body that does not kill you, you remain yourself through that change, because you have a human nature that was present from the moment you were conceived that allows us to say that we are the same person now that was conceived 19 or 20 years ago. The only difference is function-your abilities have changed but your essential nature is the same.”-Scott Klusendorf
Pro-abortion rhetoric confuses functioning as a person with being one.
Rights are not based on current capacity, but inherit capacity.
“If our rights are based on functional capacity then we are all on one giant bell curve. We start off with very little rights of personhood; as we age and mature and reach our physical and intellectual peaks we have maximum rights of personhood and then as we grow old and decline we lose personhood…it also results in savage inequality…”
Hot topics:
“Fetuses can’t feel pain, therefore we can kill them.” When you sleep you do not feel pain, neither are you aware of your surroundings. Does that mean I can slit your neck? People in surgery are the same; can we kill them?
Rape/Incest: Rape is a tragedy that happens to men, women, boys, and girls. It is a crime that no one deserves to be a victim to. But..should the child be executed for the crime of its father? Is it fair to demand that the child be killed so that the mother can feel better? Would it be acceptable to kill a two-year-old if the mother will feel better?
THE ISSUE IS : WHAT IS THE UNBORN?
-this goes for unwanted children too.
Partial birth abortion: First of all these abortions are done for convenience. Second, if the mother’s life is in danger, why would the doctor use a three-day technique when a c-section could be done in minutes?
Woman’s choice: The statement that ” a woman has a right to abortion,” is absolutely correct. “A woman has the right to control her own body.” Both of these statements are completely true-IF THERE IS ONLY ONE BODY INVOLVED. IF THERE IS NO CHILD IN HER WOMB THAT HAS A RIGHT TO LIVE.
Back-alley abortions: “If abortion isn’t legalized, thousands of women will die in back-alley abortions!” Rape is not legal but it still happens.
Theft, murder, etc, are illegal but people still do them. Should we legalize them so that the people involved won’t get hurt? Should we legalize rape? Laws don’t stop all crime but it does stop most of it. Most people don’t bludgeon each other’s brains out because it is illegal. Before abortion was legalized, people still had abortions. They CHOSE to have ‘back-alley’ abortions.
Moral Relativism: “You shouldn’t force your opinion on us!” Why not?
Well, aren’t you forcing your opinion on me?
“You’re being intolerant!”
Aren’t you being intolerant of my views.
What you’re really saying is:
“We should be tolerant of all people, except those right-wing, pro-life, fundamentalists! If you don’t agree with me then shut up!” is what you are saying.
If morals are relative, then you can’t say that ANYTHING is right or wrong including tolerance.
I have no reason why I ‘ought’ to be tolerant.
The ONLY time when abortion should be allowed is in the instance of where the fetus becomes a ‘tumor’ and truly threatens the life of the mother. It is better to save one life than lose both.
please reply if and only if you intend to speak in a logical, civil, and honest manner.
I am blunt. I am pro-choice. I am a woman.
There is only one question involved in abortion: Why are fetuses without any brains or nervous systems accorded the right to coopt another person’s body in dangerous habitation when no other living human — such as a born child — is entitled to use the body of a parent, or anyone else, even when it will die without such interference?
Also, don’t use CAPS when you want to be taken seriously.
Some say that the unborn are human but not persons.
“What is the difference between a human and a person?”
“Have you ever met a human that is not a person?”
Actually, yes. At least, I’ve met a number of humans who were not living people at the time. Situation #1: brain death. Death is defined in our society as permanent cessation of brain function. A person whose brain has ceased to work is no longer a person but a potential source of spare organs. Situation #2: anencephaly–the brain never forms. Ancephalic infants are also potential organ donors rather than newborns in need of care.
So, if cessation or lack of formation of the brain is the criterion for death–not cessation of heart or lung function or death of last cell–what possible grounds can there be for calling something without any brain function a person?
please reply if and only if you intend to speak in a logical, civil, and honest manner.
This is not your blog, you are not a monitor, you do not have the right to tell people how to respond.
Nonetheless, I do hope that you are interested in engaging in a discussion rather than making a hit and run post.
A bothered girl wrote:
Notice the metaphor: a pregnant woman is an “environment,” not a human being. So: a pregnant woman is, indeed, according to this logic, less human than a woman who is not pregnant.
The ONLY time when abortion should be allowed is in the instance of where the fetus becomes a ‘tumor’ and truly threatens the life of the mother.
1. There’s no need to put tumor in quotes: the products of conception in a molar pregnancy are a tumor and a deadly one if not treated. But, if the original fertilized egg was a person and the tumor is not, when exactly did it become a non-person? It’s the product of a mating of two humans, is it not?
2. By the time the conceptus has developed into a fetus it is not going to become a molar pregnancy. That only happens earlier in development.
3. Do you really think that molar pregnancy is the only situation in which the pregnancy endangers the pregnant woman? Not even close! The average risk pregnancy in the US has a slightly worse than 1 in 10,000 chance of ending in death for the pregnant woman. In countries with poor medical systems and little care for women who are pregnant, mortality rates can go over 1%.
HELLP syndrome, preclampsia/eclampsia, hemorrhage, thrombosis, decompensation of pulmonary hypertension, ectopic pregnancy, stroke, amniotic fluid embolism, and chorioamnionitis are just a few ways in which a pregnancy can kill a woman. Oh, and let’s not forget domestic violence, which increases during pregnancy (or possibly pregnancy is correlated with domestic violence–straight men who are abusers frequently try to make their partners pregnant in order to try to control them.)
I value tolerance without accepting moral relativism. If we accept that one person can dictate the private life choices of another person within the laws of this country, popular opinion can crush your freedoms just as fast and hard as it can crush mine. If you are allowed to declare that another girl’s reproductive choices are abhorrent and you ought to have the power to stop that girl, legally and morally you too can be stopped. In some times and places, women were discouraged from having children, or having more than a certain limit. Should the tide of public opinion shift, I would no sooner want a law prohibiting abortion than encouraging it or pressuring women to take that route.
I don’t agree with the people who practice religions I dislike, use obscene speech, abuse alcohol, or do a whole host of things I don’t approve of and don’t see as moral. It is, however, moral for me to tolerate and permit their actions, so long as they harm nobody but themselves.
Are there any situations where people in the USA are legally required to risk their health and/or safety for another person where the consequences for not doing so are criminal? If abortion were made illegal, it would be the only one that I can think of.
Not to mention that making abortion illegal wouldnt really stop most women from obtaining one. It would hurt poor women of course. But anyone with the means to travel to Canada or some other place would easily be able to obtain an abortion. I often wonder how far the anti-abortion crowd would go in order to prevent abortions. Would they administer pregnancy tests at the border and restrict pregnant women from traveling? Or would they consider that too much of an invasion of privacy?
Sure: the military and, previously, slavery. That’s why I find the opposition to abortion rights to be akin to a miliary draft and slavery (and why I regard the military draft to be akin to slavery, but that’s a whole ‘nuther thread).
Of course, under current law, abortion restrictions must have exceptions to protect the woman’s life and health. Therefore please permit me to discuss the more general question of when the law imposes upon us a duty to aid another person when there is no obvious threat to our life or health.
“Common law” refers to the principles announced, and later relied upon, by courts. The American Law Institute compiles these principles. Its Restatement of Torts, Second [edition], states at Section 314, “The fact that the actor realizes or should realize that action on his part is necessary for another’s aid or protection does not of itself impose upon him a duty to take such action.” In other words, common law imposes no generalized duty to aid. If somebody steps into quicksand, you’re free to pull up a chair and eat your lunch as you watch him go down. Pass the ketchup.
But the Restatement recognizes a number of exceptions to this general principle. See Restatement Sec. 314A (relationships creating duty to aid or protect), Sec. 314B (duty to protect endangered or hurt employee), Secs. 315-320 (duty to control the conduct of third persons), Sec. 321 (duty to fix hazard of your own creation), Sec. 344 (duty of possessor of land held open to the public). In particular, I believe (I don’t have a copy of the Restatements in front of me) Sec. 314A discusses the duty that a parent/guardian owes to a child/ward; this is arguably the most analogous principle to the abortion context. Similarly, Sec. 321’s duty to fix a hazard of your own creation arguably applies if you regard the fetus’ existence to be a hazard of the woman’s creation.
A certain amount of these principles reflect the idea of detrimental reliance – that is, the idea that if Sue leads Joe to rely on Sue, and Sue’s failure to fulfill her anticipated role will lead to Joe’s detriment, then Joe (or Joe’s estate) has grounds to get compensation from Sue for any resulting harm. I have difficulty applying this principle in many circumstances involving birth. If a doctor’s negligence in performing a vasectomy results in a child being born with Down Syndrome, does that child have a cause of action against the doctor for “wrongful life” (analogous to a claim for “wrongful death”) on the theory of detrimental reliance? Most courts say no; the child has not relied in any legally cognizable way to its detriment on the doctor’s actions. Similarly, I am not persuaded by the argument that a fetus relies to its detriment on a woman’s uterus. Even if you grant that a fetus has any legally cognizable interests at all, an abortion would place the fetus in the same position of non-existence that it would be in if the woman had simply chosen not to have sex – a choice widely acknowledged to be within the woman’s prerogative regardless of its consequences for potential fetuses. Because the woman had no duty to bring the fetus into existence, the fetus cannot claim to have have suffered a detriment relative to some prior state to which it had rightful claim if it does not continue to exist.
Admittedly, many people hold a different view on this point. I sense many people have an image of “souls” lined up in heaven, awaiting the next available body to enter. Because a soul has the opportunity to enter any of a number of potential bodies, the soul can claim to have relied on anyone who has caused the fetus to reach the appropriate benchmark causing the soul to enter that specific body. And, after the appropriate benchmark is reached, a woman’s choice to terminate a pregnancy would give the soul a claim to have relied to its detriment. If only the woman had behaved differently, this soul could have entered some other body and gone on to lead a full life – poor soul!
I know of no way to convince or dissuade anyone of this bit of metaphysics; you believe it or you don’t. But I suspect many discussions about abortion founder on this rock.
Sec. 314A discusses the duty that a parent/guardian owes to a child/ward; this is arguably the most analogous principle to the abortion context.
The parents of a child who has experienced brain death are well within their legal rights to “kill” that child, i.e. take it off life support. Likewise, the parents of a child who has lost all cortical function (but maintains brainstem function) will not be faulted or held criminally liable for taking the child off life support. So why should the not-yet parents of a not-yet child that has no or little brain function be faulted for removing life support from the fetus?
Similarly, Sec. 321’s duty to fix hazard of your own creation arguably applies if you regard the fetus’ existence to be a hazzard of the woman’s creation.
Huh. That almost sounds like there is a duty to have an abortion, which is the quickest and safest way to get rid of the hazard. However, many women under many circumstances are willing to deal with the hazard and risk for the reward of a desired baby.
Huh indeed. This whole question of detrimental reliance and existence has led to curious results since time immemorial. Consider the words of William S Gilbert in Yeomen of the Guard:
Or, as stated in Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
nobody.really: What a fascinating and thought provoking post! Thank You :)
This whole question of detrimental reliance and existence has led to curious results since time immemorial.
Yep. You could also argue, for example, that having children is immoral because if a child is born then it will someday die and killing people or setting up a situation in which they will inevitably die is immoral.