The other day I posted on Facebook, “Is abortion ever the MORE ethical choice over giving birth?” I left it at that. I didn’t want to explain why I was asking the question or what my views were because I was curious how my friends would reply. Here are some of the answers I received (with permission to share):
Beth Presswood (Godless Bitches Podcast):
“Certainly, especially in cases of extreme disabilities.”
Joel Klinepeter:
“Tay Sachs, Bringing a child into the world for no more than a couple weeks of abject agony is deeply immoral. Aborting a child with Tay Sachs is absolutely more moral than giving birth to one.”
Anonymous:
“Trisomy 18, anyone?”
Julie Lada (My DVM Vacation):
“In my opinion, wiping out a non-sentient bundle of cells rather than forcing a rape victim to undergo months of further psychological trauma during pregnancy and giving birth, no to mention her mental state afterward whatever decision she makes regarding adoption, is pretty fucking ethical.”
Nick Wallin:
“With population as high as it is, an ethical case can be made for any abortion. (This is, of course, if the woman wants said abortion.)”
Anonymous:
”(w/o reading previous comments) one possibility is if you have strong reason to believe you’ll be a terrible parent (you’re an alcoholic, say), and adoption options aren’t practically available.”
Sarah Moglia (Twitter):
“Mother’s life in danger, child’s life in danger, can’t financially provide for a child, trying to make sure you can support your other children (both financially and emotionally).”
Ashley F. Miller (Blog):
“In my opinion, any time a woman does not want to go through a pregnancy, forced birth is less ethical than an abortion. That is psychological and physical torture that will likely leave wounds for life”
Anonymous:
“A friend of mine was going through chemotherapy for brain tumors. She got pregnant by her husband, a complete freak accident (the pregnancy, not her husband). Doctors said that the baby would not survive the chemo, and the pregnancy hormones would boost the tumors’ growth. Her husband, her family, and her friends all think she made the right choice by aborting. Besides, she didn’t want to leave her 2-year-old without a mother, or her husband without a wife. I’d say that’s ethical. :)”
So, why did I make that update? I wasn’t looking to be convinced – I already thought there are many, many situations where abortion is the more ethical choice over giving birth. But I never see abortion framed in terms of being “more ethical.” I always see it described as this necessary evil that we all have to feel sad and guilty about. That the choice must be a terrible struggle only allowable when followed by a certain amount of weeping and self-destruction as penance. We never talk about women who decided to give birth in those situations as making the less ethical choice. Birth is by default seen as morally superior and self sacrificing, when there are a number of situation where it is actually the unethical choice.
I obviously still think women have the right to choose either way. Forcing a woman to give birth or get an abortion against her will is so unethical it trumps the other arguments about ethics, at least in my mind. But I hate whenever I find a thread in 2XC where a woman says “I don’t feel guilty about my abortion…is something wrong with me?” No, nothing is wrong with you…something is wrong with our culture.
Birth is by default seen as morally superior and self sacrificing, when there are a number of situation where it is actually the unethical choice.
I don’t think that “morally superior” should be conflated with “self-sacrificing.” This is part of the problem; I’m aware that calling women “selfish” is a popular way to treat them like horrible people, but I’m having none of that nonsense. One should be able to take her own interests into account in making ethical decisions. Screwing yourself over doesn’t make you a better person.
Excellent post, Jen. A critical component in the demonstration that securing women’s rights includes cultural change that not only supports abortion as a choice, but supports the women that make that choice as equally as it supports the women who don’t make that choice.
Thank you.
Still learning,
Robert
I would actually say that I can’t think offhand of any situation where abortion is unethical, assuming that the pregnant individual is the one making the decision. I’d say that abortion is pretty much always a suboptimal outcome, in that it’s better for an unwanted pregnancy not to occur that it is to terminate it, but even there that’s just because any surgical procedure has risks, and I consider less risk to be a sign of a better outcome.
EXCELLENT post
Abortion is the more ethical choice essentially whenever it’s the choice that’s made, barring perhaps obscure cases like sex-selective abortions. There’s no particular inherent ethical issue involved in a woman’s decision whether or not she wants to be pregnant and give birth, but if a woman chooses abortion and doesn’t have access or is forcibly restrained, that’s assuredly due to an ethical failing. Kudos to Ashley F. Miller for the right answer.
Aside from that, and the obvious health/deformity/financial concerns raised by your other respondents, I’d say that any time a child is pregnant abortion is the more ethical choice. Physical and emotional readiness for pregnancy and birth generally don’t happen until well after menarche. Even before you take into account how unprepared a young girl is for the consequences of a pregnancy if all goes well, abortion should be an easy choice and is the only ethical choice for a parent or guardian to depict as the best choice. In a sane society any young teenager or younger who found herself pregnant would get an abortion without a second thought.
I think that abortion is always a more ethical choice than birth; when you look at the impact we as a species have on the world and ourselves, the only ethical choice is to let ourselves go extinct. Being unable to conceive is a better option than an abortion, but if the choice is between birth and abortion then abortion is the clear ethical decision.
You mean a woman didn’t feel guilty about doing something that is something completely legal?
Yes, you’re right, what a sad culture we live in – obviously she should be stoned instead.
Abortion isn’t just about the women who choose abortion, it is also about the women who have that option available but choose not to take it.
An unexpected, undesired pregnancy can feel like a trap.
Merely having an alternative to consider and then to make the choice to deliver the child converts the mother from someone in an out-of-control situation to someone following through on a path of their own choosing.
It turns the baby from ‘unwanted child’ to ‘one of the chosen ones.’
Should we ignore the possibly huge benefit to the mother’s emotional well-being, to her mental and physical health, and through her to the baby’s mental and physical health, during and after pregnancy?
Don’t these benefits extend not just to the mothers and children, but to their communities and to the world as a whole?
Doesn’t every child deserve to be loved as much as possible?
We allow, even promote, so many immoral acts (drunk driving, irresponsible gun possession, war, etc) that take the lives of so many innocent children that it is downright ridiculous to isolate abortion for a morality debate.
I’m not objecting to your introducing the topic here, I just really wonder about the terms in which the public debate is framed.
I’m totally with Ashley on this one: it’s unethical in any case when the person doesn’t want to be pregnant, full-stop. That’s why all of the cries of baby killing mean shit to me (well, that AND I hardly think a zygote or a fetus is the same as an infant because I actually paid attention in science class). Leaving the choice to the pregnant person is the best way to avoid the arguments of morality, the holier than thou crap that always comes with it, etc.
Trisomy 18? Severe Disabilities? These are people who make decisions for others who don’t have first hand experience. Please watch this ABC special report. http://youtu.be/M5JDrQrwYFY
Our story is NOT UNCOMMON. In fact, we had several families that lost their children at our event. They gave their children a chance, and wouldn’t change a thing.
This is an excellent post, Jen.
I would argue that abortion is never the less ethical choice, because I don’t consider creating a life to be inherently more ethical than not creating it (and from the only perspective that is relevant to ethics, that of existence of minds that can experience suffering, abortion is indeed “not creating a life” rather than “ending it”).
However, that’s not what you asked. So: when is abortion the more ethical choice? Whenever there’s reason to believe that the potential child would not be healthy (so, the Tay Sachs scenario), provided for and wanted (whether by its birth parent/s or adopters). Maybe also in other scenarios when the birth might ripple negatively onto others.
It’s unconscionable to force someone to carry a pregnancy to term when that’s not their desire. Some families can’t accommodate for severely disabled children because of the time, money, and energy that they require (often because they themselves are also disabled in some capacity). Others do just fine, but it’s not their place to force that onto others. That’s why the questions of it being more/less ethical honestly should stay out of reproductive rights: leave it up to the individual to decide what’s best for his- or herself, end of story. Far fewer children will be worse off simply because of circumstance.
Is it more ethical to abort a girl than not if you want a boy? The sad irony is that by this logic you can easily justify throwing your gay kid out of the house because you have the right to the exact kid you wanted.
Well said. I know someone in this situation, and I’m proud of her because she’s turned it from something shitty that happened to her, to something she feels empowered about. I can’t think of a better start for a child; being loved and wanted.
Your failure to understand the logic is noted.
Also noted: your failure to see the difference between a living, breathing, feeling kid and an embryo and also between a person’s right to their property and their right to their own body.
Wrong, anon atheist. Just as abortion and infanticide are not the same, children– REAL children, not just potential ones– have rights. Beating a child is abuse. Kicking them out is abandonment. These actions are illegal.
As for sex-selective abortions, as long as men have advantages over women, some people will want to give their child the advantage of maleness. The way to change this is to fight for equality, not to take away something women may need.
And yes, I would argue in some circumstances, sex-selective abortion is ethical. Say we lived in India, and we could only afford a limited number of children and we couldn’t afford very good dowries, and that would mean a daughter would be at risk of being murdered by her bridegroom as a young adult. Whereas, with a boy, we could raise him to respect women and feel sure his bride would be treated well. Would you want the baby to be a possible murder-victim, or a possible good-provider? That’s the reality of life in some areas, and it’s rather unrealistic to talk about valuing a female fetus (who is not yet able to feel anything) equally with a male fetus, until more has been done to make girls as valued as boys and women as valued as men.
Jen this is a great argument, well put. Nice job framing the issue.
Congrats. I hope you can sleep at night now knowing that your support of ending an innocent life is justified by others.
As I read the “reasons” for justified extermination, all I could think of is a song “Beautiful Things”
The chorus goes as follows:
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us
I have read so many people cite rape and disability as reason for the killings. That just sounds completely selfish and it’s a convenient factor…for you. I haven’t seen the child rearing process EVER as convenient. Even if you have the perfect children. So for those who use this as an excuse…
God can take any situation and turn it into a blessing. I’ve worked in the special education department before in several districts. Difficult? Yes. Convenient? Heck no! A blessing? Yes!
When it comes to the mother’s health versus the child that’s a tough call to make. Still I’ll take my chances that God can take care of a sick mother or of a motherless child. Especially when dad is still in place.
I read one response that said it was ethical if you didn’t have enough money to support your current family. Really? That HAS to be the worst reasoning ever, especially since compared to the rest of the world we are SO rich. Maybe a family should try living within their means instead living out of debt. That alone would make a HUGE difference!
I completely, totally agree with you.
Personal experience: I was an “oops” kid. And I was most definitely not wanted at the time I was born… and I was never really allowed to forget that growing up. Her unplanned pregnancy ruined my mothers life, and she resented me for it. For dad’s part, he went from self-centered college frat boy to dad and commonlaw partner to a woman with post-partum depression in 9 months, and he resented that, too. They loved me as parents do, but you could definitely see a difference in how my sister (who was planned and wanted) and I were treated.
Ignoring the screwed-up family dynamic it caused, it’s very damaging to a kid than to find out that you weren’t wanted. I don’t feel guilty about it anymore, but it led to a lot of anguish in the self-blaming way of children until I grew up enough to realize that I was not responsible for their life choices, and even if they were unhappy with how life turned out as a result of events beginning with my conception, it was not my fault for existing.
So yeah, I definitely root for a world where every single child is not only loved, but wanted. It’s a big part of why I’m pro-choice. The Morgentaler clinics here in Canada have an excellent slogan on the “about” page that sum up my feelings in a nutshell: Every mother a willing mother. Every child a wanted child.
(I say 9 months because though I was born 10 weeks premature, I was in hospital for ~3mo after birth)
Shit on a stick, I hope you’re a troll. If not, you scare me.
That aside, I’ll try to address this comment.
First of all, an embryo is no more equivalent to a baby than an egg is to a chicken. Sure an egg in the barnyard might become a chicken, but it’s far more likely that it’ll have its development cut short – whether by accident (someone crushing it), design (someone eating it), disease, insufficient resources in the chicken’s body to make a good enough egg to support chick development, a fatal mutation, the elements or any of a number of other factors.
Same with an embryo: It might become a baby, but it’s far more likely not to – be it through injury, illness, a fatal mutation, failure to implant in the uterus, etc. Just like an egg is not a chicken until the chick has hatched, an embryo/fetus is not a baby until it is born.
Your nonexistant god can’t do anything, because god doesn’t exist.
You know, at least you’re honest about caring more about a nonsentient blob of cells than an actual living, breathing human being. I’ll give you that much: Most pro-choicers try to obfuscate this view of theirs.
That said: You are absolutely morally bankrupt and hold an abhorrent view on the value of a woman’s life. If a parasite infects me and is going to kill me, I can take antibiotics to kill it. But you’re saying that if that parasite happens to have human DNA and take up residence in my uterus, I don’t get to do that because I’m a woman? I am a person, equal to you. I have a right to life. If my right to life is in danger, I have the right to defend myself. Even in some alternate universe where I concede fetal personhood (I don’t), I have the right to self-defense if someone or something is going to kill me. This is why we allow people to kill endangered animals if said endangered animals are attacking and trying to kill the people in question. This is why we give people antibiotics to fight infections. By saying I don’t have that right because I’m a woman if something takes up residence in my uterus without my consent is the same as saying that I am not your equal. Not only are you saying I am not your equal, you are saying that I’m not even the equal of a non-sentient blob of cells. That, Oh Online Troll, is seriously fucked up.
On your last point: I live on about $9500/yr. I pay rent at $4200/yr. I buy food at $1200/yr. I pay for life-saving medication at $3260/yr. The remaining $960/yr is my disposable income – about $80/mo. I use it to buy things like clothes, food when I forget my lunch, shoes, eyeglasses, and so on. I don’t have a cell phone. I don’t have a car. Public transit costs are included in my tuition which comes straight out of my pay so I never see that money.
How, pray tell, could I live within what I have to raise a kid? Kids are expensive – they cost a hell of a lot more than $80/mo (even ignoring the fact that I’d have to pay for a more expensive place than the room-in-a-house I’m renting now, and the fact that most of that $80/mo goes to stuff I need – and that when I don’t need it, I like to donate it to charity)
You are 100% right.
The fact that I know the name and place of the nearest clinic that offers abortion is something that lets me sleep at night.
Would I ever find myself pregnant again it would be my decission to make, and I can’t say for sure now what it would be, but the fact that I know that I can choose lets me sleep and also enjoy sex. Oh, I see why the religious right has a problem there…
Even aside from the moral horribleness of your views (you think the problem with the mother dieing is that the child is motherless? Really?), the result of a life-threatening pregnancy is generally not a live child and a dead child. In cases where it potentially could be, induced labour would usually be the preferred option. Instead, the usual result is a dead mother and a dead child. Deciding that that would be the better outcome is truly monstrous.
Live child and dead mother, rather.
Too bad people here don’t believe in your god, isn’t it.
Yes, most people round here think that a woman and her wishes are more important than the existence of something that leeches off her systems.
Thanks for this! I get so tired of the “abortion is tragic” pap that seems a constant preface to any pro-choice discussion. Not only is abortion often the more ethical choice, it seems to me that a first-trimester abortion, at least, is no more tragic than having a wisdom tooth pulled, and no more ethically troubling.
Definetly not comparable.
I had a first trimester abortion after my pregnancy went wahoonie-shaped and I had my wisdon teeth removed.
In terms of physical pain and suffering, the abortion was much easier than the wisdom teeth.
Lots of possible replies, but your questions was concise and effective so I’ll try to make my reply reflect that:
Thank you.
Oh, and I stole your question. Perhaps others would do the same on facebook/twitter/g+/etc. lolcats are great and all, but other memes are possible…
(Note: viewing gender as a cultural construct and subsequently recognizing that there are people who are biologically capable of becoming pregnant who are men, “person”/”pregnant person” should really be used in place of “woman” for discussions of pregnancy.)
As others have said, abortion is always the ‘more ethical’ choice when someone doesn’t wish to be pregnant. A blastocyst/zygote/fetus is a subordinate/dependent part of a pregnant person’s body, so the only individual that exists with respect to whom one can make ethical value judgements is the person in question*. Assuming bodily autonomy as the most basic human right (I actually think this is the biggest disconnect between the reproductive justice and anti-abortion crowds – the anti-abortion advocates do not recognize bodily autonomy as a basic human right), abortion is ALWAYS the ‘most ethical’ (in fact, the ONLY ‘ethical’) option when it’s what a pregnant person desires.
The fact that people are expected to seem contrite when supporting abortion, that it’s framed as a necessary evil drives me nuts, too. I am unapologetically pro-abortion (though functionally this manifests as pro-choice/pro-reproductive-justice: while I think people should have fewer children, I’d never want to coerce the decision through law or other means; trying to convince people to make an informed and as-unconstrained-as-possible choice to have fewer children is good, though, and when women are educated and socially-and-economically empowered, it’s also overwhelmingly the choice they – and the few men capable of becoming pregnant – make).
*Arguably, one could bring in the impact on other individuals or cultural systems, though these analyses are frequently left out of ethical discussions from a Liberal perspective, where the focus is on the individual. Since procreating is always an imposition on a community – resource use, service necessity, imposed social relationships – undertaken without the consent of other members of the community or the person being created, it’s always ethically problematic to a certain degree, and a global population that strains the planet’s support capacity significantly diminishes the marginal benefit to humanity of the existence of another person that might counterbalance the ethical problems inherent in creating a life, so a focus on the individual is probably the STRONGEST framing one could use to make the case that procreation is ever more beneficial than it is problematic.
Isn’t it odd that so many of the same people who argue for “traditional marriage” (am I alone in reading that as “husband in charge, husband owns all property including wife, husband may physically punish wife for any perceived infractions”?) are arguing against the traditional meaning of “birth” in the abortion debates?
I have wondered why we haven’t heard the next logical step of saying that each human egg (a very limited resource, after all) should be given the right to life, and therefore each should be anointed with sperm. But that would place an obligation on men, and that is the problem.
The abortion argument isn’t really about women at all, but is about men: its roots come from a belief that the most important part of the whole process is the man’s contribution of fertilization, and that trumps the trivial contributions of the woman in ovulating, carrying the fetus to term, giving birth, nursing, mothering, etc.
Think of “mothering a child” and “fathering child” – mothering usually takes many years and while it is placed on a pedestal and romanticized as a concept, it is all-too-often only reluctantly supported in fact, if at all, while fathering takes only a few minutes (sometimes less if he’s in a hurry) but is a symbol of power and glory and lauded in bible and history books.
For most people, a delivery truck is simply a vehicle to get the shippers goods to their destination. Many see a woman as also a delivery vehicle, a beast of burden, to deliver the father’s shipment into the world. “Good fathers love their wives, the mothers of their children.” Yes, but they love their trucks, horses, motorcycles, too. And they don’t give their trucks, horses, motorcycles, much margin in choice either.
The same-sex marriage debate seems to me to be largely about equality – same-sex marriage is obviously between equals, which implies that man-woman marriage could be between equals, and some folks are simply tired of that kind of talk and want to preserve the “traditional marriage” between superior man and inferior woman.
The anti-abortion argument seems to fit the same pattern.
The phrase “war on women” isn’t strong enough.
This doesn’t *necessarily* discuss abortion in terms of it being a more ethical choice, but http://www.imnotsorry.net/ tells the stories of women who are, well, not sorry they’ve had abortions, for all kinds of different reasons. I find it a great and fascinating resource that neatly refutes the idea that abortion is a “necessary evil that we all have to feel sad and guilty about.”
The current framing is shite.
It actually sort of reminds me of the whole Sandra Fluke thing, where a common defense against Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on her was “no, she’s not a slut!” where it should have been “fuck you, her sex life is none of your business!” In the same way that people tend to want to downplay the positive aspects of having exactly the sex life that makes you most happy, people don’t talk about abortion as a positive act.
As a man, I don’t have to face the issue on a personal level and I don’t pretend to. But it doesn’t take an act of superhuman empathy to understand that children are a big deal, and not everyone wants one, and not everyone who wants one wants one right now. I also understand that a person’s autonomy is right up there at the top of the list of human rights, and nothing affects a woman’s life more than motherhood. So it seems pretty obvious that controlling if an when a woman has children is near the top of their rights.
The other side of that is that sex is ALSO a huge part of the human experience, and the right to enjoy sex in the way you want with however many or few willing partners you can find is part of the right to autonomy. So everything from zero partners to weekly orgies and everything in between should be accepted and embraced, and if you can’t do that at least have the courtesy to STFU about it. Certainly no one should face negative consequences for having the consensual sexual experiences that suit them best, especially not because some stranger disapproves based on a book of fairy tales.
“Maybe a family should try living within their means instead living out of debt. That alone would make a HUGE difference!”
Right– and one child is within most people’s means. Two or more is not.
After reading your post again it is not really clear to me. First of all “more ethical” and “necessary evil” are not mutually exclusive. If the life of the woman is in danger an abortion can certainly be the more ethical to do and still be a necessary evil.
But I’m wandering whether you mean that abortion is intrinsically or an absolute ethical thing to do like donating to the food bank. I mean just because killing a terminally ill patient in order to end her suffering can be the more ethical ethical thing to do but this does not make killing people magically an ethical thing to do.
Many of us are saying that given that a pregnancy exists and given that the pregnant person wishes this not to be so (or wishes not to bring it to term) abortion is the more ethical choice. Denying such a choice when desired is treating the pregnant person in question as a slave. Do you support slavery?
I haven’t had a chance to see it yet, but Lindsay Ellis’s documentary “The A-Word” is about society’s weird aversion to discussing abortion even among those who accept it. Supposedly it’s quite good.
When you beat a person for speaking her mind, that’s treating her as a slave. When you take possession of her body and steal her labor for the benefit of another entity or object that’s actually enslaving her.
Thank you troll. Thanks for reminding me how lucky I am to live in a country with free contraception and abortion. A place where “I’m an atheist” is met with “Yeah, and?”, and where there is legal protection for all minority groups.
The thought of living in a godbag-infested dystopia, where women are viewed as walking wombs, and where female sexuality is something deserving punishment? It fills me with horror. So thanks again for reminding me how lucky I am to not be American.
So, you’re saying it’s a good think YOU HAD A CHOICE.
I completely agree.
He was whining about how evil wimmins trap men with child support on another thread. Now, suddenly, he cares about “babies”. it’s a troll.
I need a new lung. If I don’t get one, I’ll die. Give me one of yours.
to Too Bad – thank you for pointing out the ethically untenable arguments of the religious.
My answer to this one is that abortion is ALWAYS the more ethical choice.
Bringing a person into this overpopulated, unkind world is always the least ethical choice.
If anti-choicers thought through and cared about the consequences of their “arguments” then they wouldn’t be anti-choicers. They very clearly don’t take their “arguments” seriously. Why they imagine other people should take them seriously is a bit of a mystery.
I’m not to sure about that. We’ve seen – time and time again – how the only moral abortion is an Anti-Choicer’s abortion. It’s all those other sluts who should be punished.
I don’t think they would change their minds if they could think through this argument – after all, the rules only apply to those evil sluts!
Which is the point of the “I need your [insert body part]” example. To immediately show what lying fucking hypocrites they are.
Though, since they love to claim they care about children, I usually make the person in need of a body part a child. That way they, too, are killers of hypothetical children.
When it comes to the mother’s health versus the child that’s a tough call to make. Still I’ll take my chances that God can take care of a sick mother or of a motherless child. Especially when dad is still in place.
Well, isn’t that magnanimous of you. Why don’t you just take, you know, *your* chances that your god can take care of aborted embryos and slowly back away from using the health/lives of pregnant women as faith props?
One little thing: It’s not about motherhood or parenthood.
If that were the deal, adoption might be a solution (hell, I live in a country where people wait up to 7 years to adopt a newborn…).
It’s about pregnancy, and I probably wouldn’t want to do that again for anything in the world.
I don’t know if this is true anymore, but it was 10-15 years ago. In Cuba, abortions were free and readily available when other forms of birth control were not as easy to obtain. Women regularly had abortions. Many women would have multiple abortions during their child bearing years. And it wasn’t ever an ethical question. Nobody had to go through some deep soul searching over getting an abortion.
This idea that abortion is an ethical or moral issue is a cultural creation. It doesn’t have to be.
FORTUNATELY, in the City of God (Catholicism) human beings are not disposable.
Not surprisingly, outside of that city, well, murder comes easy to the hordes~
So we need to upgrade it to the “Apocalypse on Women” now. It is beginning to feel that way.
From an antinatalist (i.e. “correct”) point of view, abortion is *always* the correct ethical choice.
You know, because fewer women (and people in general!) are being actively punished that way, so that’s less attractive to the charming misogynist Bible-thumpers ;(
“When it comes to the mother’s health versus the child that’s a tough call to make. Still I’ll take my chances that God can take care of a sick mother or of a motherless child. Especially when dad is still in place.”
I’m so happy to know that my husband values my life more than you do. And to know with complete certainty that if it ever came down to a choice between a fetus and me, he’d choose me every time.
When is abortion the more ethical choice? When the woman who is pregnant does not want to be pregnant. For any reason, including because she wants to look good in her prom dress or she doesn’t want to have a girl. It is never right to have a child that one resents or won’t take care of. It is never right to force a person to risk their life unwillingly for a cause they don’t believe in. And even the lowest risk pregnancy can result in death–more than 10X more frequently than abortion.
FORTUNATELY, in the City of God (Catholicism) human beings are not disposable.
Unless, of course, they’re pregnant women. Just ask the woman in Arizona who the Catholic bishops are all upset about. Make no mistake, by saying that the abortion shouldn’t have been performed, they are saying she should have died. Neither she nor the fetus had any chance of survival without the abortion. The bishops reprimanded the hospital because they did not murder a patient.
In catholicism, pregnant women are not human beings.
Sorry for not using strong enough language. Sometimes the fact that English is not my native language shows. I did not mean to belittle the significance of forced birth.
One odd thing about the forced-birthers is where they say it is about responsibility. If they believe women seeking abortions are irresponsible why do they think it would be such a great idea to demand that they raise a(n additional?) child?
Yes, it’s always amazing to see, isn’t it?
They declare that the blastocyte/cygote/embryo/fetus is a child that must live because that’s the adequate punishment for a woman who had sex.
FTFY
;)
“I’ll take my chances that God can take care of a sick mother or of a motherless child.”
These are YOUR chances that you’re talking about, not anyone else’s.
I’ve known pro-choice people who have talked women out of abortions with the promise of helping them. They helped the women through the pregnancy, but when the babies came, they were on their own. When the Catholic church announces that they will be selling the multitude of treasures they own and store in the Vatican, and will be offering 21-year (college included) child-support contracts to women entering abortion clinics, I’ll be impressed. For now, I can’t trust the seventh of the world’s population belonging to that institution in their pro-life crusade when they have shown virtually no outrage at the way their leaders have abused thousands of children.
And your “God” isn’t very impressive, either. Omnipotent and omnibenevolent, but rape still happens, miscarriages happen, infertility happens. Miscarriages are abortions performed by God.
Fantastic. You go ahead and live in that city if it suite you best. But don’t make all women come live there with you (which is what faith-based anti-choice legislation does). Your faith ends where it meets my body.
What amazes me is that only after pushing my kids out of my vag were they then appointed with the title: “human”. Only then did my tiny humans have rights.
Whereas my friend who delivered a live baby at 20 weeks pregnant, even though her daughter lived one hour outside the womb before her little heart gave out…was certainly not a “human”. No, no. Although she had a beating heart and tiny fingernails, she was just a collection of cells, a blob really, nothing that deserves any dignity or certainly any respect.
You may happily proceed with calling me a troll and “Internet stoning” me for expressing myself on your pro-murder blog post.
If I read the underlying fear in your post correctly, you seem to be concerned that you could be forced to abort a 20 week old fetus that you want to keep. Well, under some circumstances, it’s possible that you could be. And ‘pro-life’ congresspeople are ok with that.
No, Heidi
The blastocyte/embryo/fetus is human. What else should it be, a chickadee?
The point is that before you push them out (or have your friendly surgeon to perfom a C-section), they are solely and completely depending on your body and that therefore, since you’re the only person who is allowed to make decissions about your body, it’s your call to say what’s going to happen.
A woman who loses her wanted child due to complications, stillbirth or defects is a tragedy, she deserves care and compassion and nobody here would give her any less. Because that’s what pro-choice is about: the choice to be or not be pregnant.
You might be shocked to hear, but most people here are actually loving and caring parents.
“Forcing a woman to give birth or get an abortion against her will is so unethical it trumps the other arguments about ethics”
Maybe women should learn to be responsible about sex, EXPECT to get pregnant every time you have sex and that would eliminate 98% of abortions
If I expected to get pregnant every time I had sex, I’d be wrong every time except once. The marvels of birth control.
98% of abortions are due to irresponsible women? Amazing! I’m guessing this information comes from the International Journal of Slut-Shaming and Blame-Shifting?
I can’t wait to hear your thought on the welfare state. I bet it involves bootstraps somehow.
My underlying fear (and disgust) is that people on this blog seem to be of the mindset that only wanted children are human whereas unwanted children are non-human. The loving parents on this blog think it is perfectly acceptable and ethical to rip a baby from limb to limb or stab them to death (because these such babies have the audacity to “leech” off their mothers bodies, aghast!) These do not sound like loving options to me. Why not let the child have a chance to be born, then when they reach an age of comprehension, tell it to them straight up that they are not wanted, therefore they are non-human and give them the choice of whether or not they want:
1. All their limbs torn from their body.
2. To be stabbed to death.
3. Be given to a loving adoptive family.
That is the only ethical thing to do in the case of an unwanted non-human.
A female has a choice. A choice to use preventative methods to ensure she does not get pregnant, or ensure her partner is using preventative methods before his cock goes in her vag. A raped female has a choice to use the morning after pill. Females are blessed with the irreplaceable privilege of being the gender capable of carrying a child throughout a pregnancy, and we as females should take pride in this ability and treat pregnancy as a privilege, rather than an “infection” of sorts. A female fetus on the other hand, is the only true female in this situation that has no choice, as her very heartbeat is solely dependent on the choice of the female housing her. And this, my loving friends, should be taken very seriously.
You are an inconvenience to me, so I’m just going to stab you to death. It’s legal!
What you seem unable to understand is that a blastocyte/fetus is not a person, and therefore not a child. They are not sufficiently aware until after they are born. Look up developmental psychology, it takes a while for the brain to develop to the point where a human can interact as a person.
Also, you shouldn’t characterise the ability to get pregnant as the defining feature of being a women. There are many women who are unable to get pregnant for a variety of reasons, to dismiss their gender identity because of this is just rude.
No, Heidi, all children are human. Also, all human embryos are human. Children are also people, meaning that they have been born and have a life independent of their mother.
Ehm, no. Nobody thinks it’s OK to rip babies apart. Because a baby is a independent human being. Yes, embryos/fetuses leech off their mothers, aka hosts. This is perfectly acceptable as long as the woman agrees to it. Tell me, where’s your love and compassion for the woman?
Hmm, because that means women would have to go through the pregnancy against their will which is the sole question of this debate?
So, tell me, how many disabled or troublesome kids who are clogging your adoption system right now have you adopted? Looks like you think it’s a loving option to farm a child just like life-stock.
It’s nice that at least you accept that contraception is the best way to prevent abortions. Yet I suggest that you look at the PEARL index: none of them are without a failure rate. Also, what are you doing to fight republican meassures that would force abstinence-only education, limit the access to birth control and try to exempt them from health-care plans?
Of course unless you’re a child raped by your own father. Or simply so traumatized that you can’t do anything for 3 days except sitting in your shower and scratching the skin off your bones…
Well, apart from your duely noted gender essentialism, do you understand the difference between a privilege and something forced on you?
Well, apart that it has no capacity for “choice”, you’ve perfectly figured out what the point is: Something is entirely depending on the resources of somebody else. Therefore the person providing the resources with their own body gets to make the choice.
Well, so you think that all those women who seek abortions are irresponsible and couldn’t handle something as simple as a condom, or the pill, or Plan B.
And you think that the absolutely acceptable solution to this problem of women who are too stupid to remember to take the pill each morning is to make them have a child.
Yes, that makes sense.
Does anyone else think that “Heidi” is probably male? I don’t know many women who talk about other women as “a female”. I think he’s hiding behind a female username to get sympathy.
Gender aside, Heidi, like most “pro-lifers” doesn’t seem to know much about biology. Perhaps s/he has been scared by the pro-slavery side’s propaganda and isn’t able to comprehend real biology texts which might provide a more realistic picture.
First, there are significant differences between a fetus and a newborn of the same gestational age. Among other things, a fetus is in a low oxygen environment, which probably suppresses most or all cortical activity. If you put an actual person with a known, working brain into a low oxygen environment, they will loose consciousness. It seems logical, therefore, that fetuses have not yet gained consciousness. If it is aborted, even late, it will never gain consciousness and will no more know about it than a fetus never conceived due to abstinence.
Second, the vast majority of abortions are performed via D and C or medically. Neither involves “ripping limb from limb” or “stabbing”. More like scooping out.
Third, a fetus doesn’t even have the neural pathways that carry pain sensation until about 22 weeks gestation. They literally can’t feel what is happening to them.
Fourth, most abortions after 15 weeks are performed for malformations incompatible with life. How “loving” is it to allow a baby to be born and experience the world, only to have its only experience in life, ever, be intolerable pain or slow suffocation? That’s what you’re condemning a baby to if you outlaw late term abortions for fetal defects. I’ve seen babies die like that and it’s ugly. I’d rather be torn limb from limb myself than allow that to happen again if I can stop it.
Fifth, adoption is not a good option for many situations. The little evidence that exists concerning maternal outcomes suggests that relinquishing a baby for adoption causes long term depression and suffering. Nor are child outcomes always the greatest: adoptees are more likely to be neglected or abused. And if they’re ill or minority, forget it. They’ll be in foster care forever.
Finally, birth control. Birth control is great. Know what THE safest method of birth control known is? Barrier protection with abortion as a backup if it fails. Of course, that’s on a population level, individual women will want to use various methods for a variety of reasons, etc. But denying women the backup means killing some of them. That’s the bottom line for the anti-abortion movement: ban abortion and you WILL kill women. In the supposed interest of an entity that literally does not know it exists yet. The pro-life movement is a murderous one. And they’re ok with that.
Nobody thinks it’s OK to rip babies apart.
Well, most pro-lifers are ok with ripping babies apart if they’re Afghani or Iraqi babies.
Touchée, madame, touchée
BTW, are the lower case dianne and the upper case Dianne the same?
I gets confused.
I think you are but I don’t want to be stupid :)
For me to give an opinion on this question, first I’d have to be convinced I was a better judge of the matter than the woman who’s actually pregnant and considering the procedure.
As it stands, I can’t see why I’m better at judging the morality of that decision than her. A couple of people have made this point in the thread so far, I just thought I’d echo it.
I am. The capitalization depends on whether I’ve signed in or not.
Giliell & Dianne,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. Dianne, I am a woman. I know this might shock you as I’m completely going against “Woman’s Reproductive Rights” with my stance on abortion, but let me assure you, I have a vagina, I’ve pushed 2 baby boys out of it (the magical moment they were appointed “human”, because *ahem* they were “wanted”) and I’m quite certain that if I hadn’t gone through two pregnancies already, I wouldn’t be affected so much about the thought of millions of abortions happening every year. I was one of the 90% of woman at the hospital where I gave birth to get an epidural, which made labor pains much more manageable, and yes, pushing was a very uncomfortable experience, but yay me, I did it!
Giliell, I’ll quote you first:
“Children are also people, meaning that they have been born and have a life independent of their mother”
That’s true, although a child (or baby after birth) could not survive other then to “leech” off other parents/people/agencies/hospitals/government money depending where they go after they are born. Children cannot survive without some sort of “host”. Imagine abandoning a baby after you gave birth to it. Yes, it would die. It can’t even move. So, at what point I ask you, do children stop being leeches? Is it when they are …. old enough to get a job? Old enough to apply for welfare (and then, are they still considered leeches?) It appalls and further disgusts me that any kind of helpless human being would be considered a leech. Yet people on this blog have no problem with it.
“Tell me, where is your love and compassion for the woman?”
I don’t have a sense of compassion towards a woman who gets an abortion simply out of inconvenience. To kill a child because you don’t want stretch marks or…you don’t want it affecting your career, or…you don’t feel you have enough money to raise a child. There is always adoption as an option. Why should an innocent human being have to die just because it’s convenient? You are an inconvenience to me, I’m just going to go ahead and scoop the life out of you (As Dianne has pointed out, many abortions aren’t stabbing or ripping the limbs apart, but rather “scooping” to death). Okay, well why don’t I have the right to “scoop” to death a person who is quite frankly a big bother in my life? Or they have a disability and it makes me uncomfortable? This kind of “right” is one that I deny as a woman.
“Or simply so traumatized that you can’t do anything for 3 days except sitting in your shower and scratching the skin off your bones”
The cases of pregnancy caused by rape are extremely rare. And in those situations, yes, after taking a very hot shower and picking out all their skin, the rape victim should still have some kind of sense to pick up some plan B. Just because you are a victim of a horrible crime doesn’t make you a really daft person. In the case of a child being raped by their father, what a horrific thing to endure, but again, how often does this even happen, and when is murder ever justified in the “human” world? Is it justified to murder someone because they have 3 eyeballs? Or if they have a chemical imbalance in their brain? No, it would not be considered justified. So why is it justified in these rare cases? Because of our culture of course.
“Also, what are you doing to fight republican measures that would force abstinence-only education, limit the access to birth control and try to exempt them from health-care plans? ”
I’m Canadian and I wasn’t aware of these republican measures. I believe that all youth should be educated on all forms of birth control and given full free access to birth control, and no one should be exempted from access to free health care, which is why I shake my head at America and wonder how people survive in a system like that. In Canada health care is free and accessible to all. I believe instead of spending $800 on every abortion, the money should be spent on sex-education, finding more advanced birth control options, and giving sexually active females the option of having a IUD at a very affordable cost. I’ve heard that a male birth control pill is being developed and I can’t think of a better idea myself, I hope it catches on well and that men aren’t too “macho” to take a pill every day if they are sexually active.
“Fifth, adoption is not a good option for many situations. The little evidence that exists concerning maternal outcomes suggests that relinquishing a baby for adoption causes long term depression and suffering. Nor are child outcomes always the greatest: adoptees are more likely to be neglected or abused. And if they’re ill or minority, forget it. They’ll be in foster care forever.”
Where are you getting your evidence? Someone posted earlier that there is a 7 year wait list for adoption in some places. I know several adopted friends who are living a wonderful life – key word, living. I also know several friends who have adopted children, either getting the child out of foster care, or from third world countries. These children are in happy, well-rounded families and they are living, breathing, and experiencing life to the full. I admire these families and nothing makes me sadder than to think of couples who cannot bear children who would make excellent parents, who either can’t afford to adopt or are put on a 7 year waitlist when there are children being murdered pre-birth every single hour. How does this make sense? How is this acceptable?
In the case of snuffing out a life because that life will be disabled, I urge you to find a person with a disability who would rather be dead then living their life right now. I have worked with many amazing people with disabilities who are some of the happiest people I know. My own cousin has a rare chromosomal disorder that renders him very delayed in life. He is 15 and still wearing diapers. Is he a happy kid? Yes! Very, and he brings a lot of joy to our family. My grandfather on my other side who knows about this cousin of mine can’t comprehend how we don’t want him dead already. How much of a hassle my cousin must be. Of course, my grandfather also fought in World War II as a Nazi. Hm. His mindset on snuffing out the life of people who are disabled seems to make a little more sense. I would HOPE that our culture sees things differently than a 88 year old War Veteran, and rather be a culture that sees the value of each and every life and potential life.
One last thing of note, did you know that Roe, the famous case that won over the Supreme Court in the early 70’s when they made all abortions legal…she is now an anti-abortion activist who regrets her part in that court decision from so many years ago. This ought to tell you something about our system. She has tried hard to get abortion laws overturned, when she was the one in the first place who accepted it. Why does she hate abortion so much? Because she actually went through the pregnancy in question and was able to give her daughter up for adoption. Also she worked in an abortion clinic and saw the horrors of babies being ripped apart and all the limbs needing to be accounted for to make sure nothing was missed inside. As noted in my first paragraph, I also went through pregnancy. I felt my babies jump, kick, flutter around in my stomach from about 18 weeks onward. Living inside of me, helpless little beings, waiting to be born and experience life. Which reminds me, I better get off this blog and go play with my “leeches” now, they need their host, who I’m proud to be.
I apologize if my statement about females having the privilege of being the gender capable of getting pregnant – I didn’t mean to exclude woman who cannot get pregnant – I simply meant that biologically, females can get pregnant whereas males cannot. You make a very good point that many females cannot get pregnant. Many of these females WANT children. So why do we keep allowing children to be killed when they could very well be in loving families who want them?
Crap… yeah, I know. I should have said, thanks for fixing that.
A true conservative viewpoint seems not to have been presented here as yet.
If the government obligates another entity to perform a function that has financial costs, then conservatism requires that a funding source be identified and provided. It is quite simply irresponsible, unethical, even immoral, to place a financial burden, no matter how proper and good it seems, on another level of government, a corporation, or an individual, without providing for those costs.
Thus conservatism demands that anyone advocating legal bans on abortion must identify a funding source for paying the costs, including continuing a pregnancy to term, all delivery costs, and the costs of raising that child to the age of financial independence.
In particular, a realistic appraisal must be made of the additional government spending burden for those children who will become an additional burden on the criminal justice system. There is good statistical evidence to support crime rates being inversely affected by the availability of abortions. If the government cannot disprove those statistical indications, then it must provide for the possible expense. (For now, let’s not raise the issue that banning abortion might well be ‘soft on crime.’)
Those costs of additional crime would accrue primarily at the state and local levels and it would be the worst form of bad government and Federal interference if the Federal government were to impose those burdens without funding them.
Please, if you advocate legally banning abortion and embrace conservative beliefs, be true to those conservatism ideals by identifying the level of government which should place the ban, and the sources of funding for the costs of that ban.
Asking any level of government to deny abortions without providing for the associated costs is utterly repugnant to basic conservative tenets and should be denounced by all true conservatives.
Someone posted earlier that there is a 7 year wait list for adoption in some places.
Such as where? There may be a a 7 year wait for healthy babies of the “right” color (whatever “right” is in context), but there is a surplus of older or “damaged” children just about everywhere.
Imagine abandoning a baby after you gave birth to it. Yes, it would die.
Maybe. Ever heard of “foundlings”? They’re babies that the mothers abandoned or were forced to abandon and were found and raised by others. Does that suggest to you that they maybe are a little different from fetuses somehow?
I know several adopted friends who are living a wonderful life
Too bad this rosy outcome isn’t universal.
And while it’s obvious you think that women who become pregnant shouldn’t have any consideration, women who give a baby up for adoption have almost universally bad outcomes.
That was me. 7 years for healthy babies. Older kids or troublesome kids, they’re 10 for a dime. It’s actually one of the things I’d like to do in my life: Become a foster parent for at least one of them.
Wow, just wow.
Sorry, but I can’t bring myself to discuss matters any further with you after you wrote this:
You truely have no empathy or consideration for actual living people, calling rape victims who don’t manage to get Plan B in time daft, but are all out and about for this, something that can’t feel warm, cold, pain, pleasure, love, hate, anger or distress.
So would you be in favor of or against aborting an embryo like the one in gileill’s link? Do you consider it human? Do you have, in short, any idea what you’re talking about or are you just reacting emotionally to an admittedly disturbing picture?
Because the *person* who is carrying the fetus doesn’t want to do so. And since it is this person who will bear any effects of continued pregnancy or birth if the pregnancy were to continue it is wrong to force a decision on xir against xir will. (It is OK to ask nicely – though not to badger and manipulate.)
Nobody is obliged to host an unwanted uterine parasite, regardless of the predicted health outcomes of the future infant.
I sleep pretty well, thanks.
I don’t give a shit about “innocence.” The fetus’ intent doesn’t magically make it stop harming my health.
Oooh, rebuttal by saccharine xtian lyrics! Totally convincing. *sage nod*
How dare a woman not want to carry around the fetus of her rapist for nine months. How dare a woman not want to be burdened with caring for a severely disabled child, especially in a country like the U.S. with shit for social services. Teh Wholly Babble sez that Womben are put on earth to suffer and slave for others!!
I don’t believe in your deity, and working in special ed doesn’t qualify you to make decisions about other people’s bodies.
So you’re a sociopath. Good to know. And a heteronormative one as well.
Maybe you should read the fucking newspapers once in a while, specifically anything to do with the economy.
Aside from women being disposable in the City of Imaginary Being Pulled Out of Your Ass, so are the various children raped by priests.
YES. This.
Seriously, does anyone ever agonize over the “more ethical choices” of men like this?
Such a martyr, you are.
Yeah, men have no role in baby-making whatsoever and therefore no responsibility. Also, women have no right to have sex unless they want a baby. Thanks for tipping your misogynist hat, shitstain.
“it is wrong to force a decision on xir against xir will.”
Oh, you did *not* just do that. Free tip: using ridiculous arbitrary pronouns only ever used by the most radical segment of womens’ studies majors will only make you look like a rabid ideologue detached from reality. Way to make us pro-choicers look ridiculous.
Good question Dianne. No I’m not the most well researched individual when it comes to abortion. I’m just a young mother of two who remembers how it felt to have a life growing inside of me. From the moment my pee stick turned positive, I pictured a tiny life inside of me. Not a collection of cells, but a life. Sure, it’s a developing life but it’s life none the less. I’ve actually had two miscarriages (one at 9 and one at 7 weeks) when we were trying to get pregnant with our second son. At the hospital they referred to the miscarriages as abortions. It’s the body’s way of saying that the wee life wouldn’t be strong enough to survive. When I miscarried, yes, it looked like a blob both times, but it was still a devastating loss for me as it was the loss of a precious life. So when I picture a woman getting an abortion willingly, it sends a chill up my spine to think of someone having the right to decide whether or not someone gets a chance at life. I’m of the mindset that ethical review boards should be reinstated to determine whether or not an abortion should be allowed, and that preventative methods should be majorly pushed to young people. If abortion out of sheer convenience was out of the question, I wouldn’t feel so upset about it.
A quick search on Heidi’s picture shows that there is no confirmation that it is even an aborted fetus. It also seems to be the one standard pro-life picture. Odd that they can’t seem to find more.
Go fuck yourself.
So when I picture a woman getting an abortion willingly, it sends a chill up my spine to think of someone having the right to decide whether or not someone gets a chance at life.
I’m hypofertile. Should I have a right to say you shouldn’t use birth control because I’m jealous of how easily you can get pregnant? I understand feeling unhappy about a miscarriage and feeling envious of women who can carry pregnancies easily, but you’d be better off letting go of your hatred of women who can carry pregnancies easily and giving up on punishing them for the sin of having easier pregnancies than you.
Also find a nice maternal fetal medicine specialist who can workup the problem. It might be reversible. Assuming, of course, that your friends haven’t already shot or driven off all the OBs in your area.
Lol. Well, if they used pictures of what most abortions actually DO look like, manufacturing dishonest moral faux-rage would be impossible.
If, however, as Heidi did, they can use icky pictures that can – without any evidence whatsoever – be assumed to be the results of abortion (nevermind the reason! bitchez ain’t shit!), THEN we can get the carefully manufactured moral faux-rage needed to justify reducing women to axolotl tanks
“So when I picture a woman getting an abortion willingly, it sends a chill up my spine to think of someone having the right to decide whether or not someone gets a chance at life.”
But we do that all the time, and no one cares except in the case of abortion. I have not dated people because they wished to have children; do you really think it would be better for me to have brought those children into existence in a family where one parent sees the fact they have children as a mistake and moral failing? Likewise, do we have a duty to grant every gamete the greatest possible chance of being involved in conception? As I said above, I think your idea of person-hood is wrong and inconsistent with biological reality.
I also suggest you look up the book “Better to Never Have Been” by David Bentar, it says a lot about the ethical value of giving someone a chance at life.
“So when I picture a woman getting an abortion willingly, it sends a chill up my spine to think of someone having the right to decide whether or not someone gets a chance at life.”
And when i see people getting intentionally pregnant it makes me despair for our ability to act morally, and squicks me out. But I would suggest we respect others bodily autonomy, so we can make the right choices for ourselves rather than have others dictate our lives to us.
I too recommend the excellent Benatar book – it’s a must-read. Peter Singer has some valuable insights as well. But even without that, I’m always baffled by people who seem to think that a blob of undifferentiated tissue, or even a partially developed fetus, is somehow more deserving of special protection than any of the animals that we kill every day, which actually have capacity for pain and displeasure. It makes no objective sense, and so people resort to religion or completely specious handwaving about how humans are somehow magical.
Heidi has basically come right out and stated that her opinions on abortion are entirely driven by her own emotional reactions and fantasies, rather than having any basis in science or reason. I really don’t think someone of that mindset has the capacity to change their mind when presented with factual arguments.
I cannot control my laughter as I read your response to what I wrote. How can I take your views seriously when you twist words around and make up all these theories (“Heidi must be a man”, “Heidi must hate woman who have good pregnancies”) when you my dear know hardly anything about me.
I have had two wonderful healthy pregnancies and I had two miscarriages. Many woman have miscarriages within the first 3 months, its very common. I’m not bitter about it because it’s the way of life and I had no choice. Did it devastate me? Of course! Did it make me bitter toward woman who have great pregnancies? Absolutely not. Does it make me bitter towards woman who intentionally destroy their babies because they would be inconvenienced by having the baby? Yes! Does it make me wish that people were more careful when they are sexually active and know they don’t want children? Of course!
The OB’s in my city are wonderful and no ones tries to kill them off. Dianne, it’s been entertaining holding a “conversation” with you, you’ve provided me with a good laugh, and now I’ll go back to crying myself to sleep over this issue that I know nothing scientifically about.
But even without that, I’m always baffled by people who seem to think that a blob of undifferentiated tissue, or even a partially developed fetus, is somehow more deserving of special protection than any of the animals that we kill every day, which actually have capacity for pain and displeasure.
The more I think about it the more I wonder if pro-lifers genuinely can’t distinguish between an embryo and a child. If they can’t make that distinction, maybe the only thing that keeps them from killing their children or others’ children is the “abortion is wrong” meme. I’d always assumed, in the past, that the “so you think it’s ok for me to kill my 17 year old” rhetoric was just…well, just that: over the top rhetoric. But on considering it, I’m not so sure. Maybe it was meant to be taken exactly literally from a person who really can’t distinguish between an embryo, a fetus, a baby, and a child.
Heidi, I notice that you didn’t answer the question: Do you believe the embryo in giliell’s link is a baby or not?
Interestingly you yourself keep talking about your two children, while proclaiming that women who have abortions at the time you had your miscarriages or before are murdering babies.
Seems like you don’t actually believe what you say when it’s about yourself, but sure if it’s about other women.
Oh my. I’m trying to say that rape victims aren’t dumb people. A horrible thing has happened to them and I would hope that they get the help they need.
Its a good question Dianne – sorry I forgot to answer it.
I do consider the picture to be a baby. Just like I considered my miscarriages to be loss of babies, not just expelling of cells. (Is this perhaps because my pregnancies were wanted? Then the human aspect comes into play?)
At what point in a pregnancy would you consider the fetus to become a baby?
Would you consider my friend’s baby born live at 20 weeks who lived for an hour to be a baby? It would be odd that they had a funeral for a collection of cells.
Why didn’t I have a funeral for my miscarried babies or name them or say that I have 4 children? Well quite frankly it does have to do with the fact that they both happened very early on, I couldn’t make out the gender, or any defining features of the babies. But they were still babies none the less. I don’t carry any guilt in losing them, as it was natures way of determining that they did not live. It was not an active choice to terminate their lives.
We have strayed really far from the point of Jen’s original blog post. If there are ethical issues such as rape pregnancy, incest pregnancy, baby won’t survive outside the womb, mother won’t survive the pregnancy, then why isn’t there an ethical review board in place and why aren’t these the only types of abortions taking place?
You know just as well as me that most abortions are done because of the “inconvenience” of having a baby, not because of one of the above “more accepted” reasons. You know as well as me that late term abortions happen, where the baby is halfway out of the vagina and the doctor stabs the baby in the back of the head and sucks out its brain.
Sorry but to me that sounds like a twisted fucked up Saw 7 movie or something. Not like something that should be accepted in our culture.
LOl a good point. One that will likely be ignored, of course, because it’s true.
That was in response to Gilell at #47
And here we are right back to bitchez ain’t shit but incubators. What it with the Forced Birth Brigade? Why bother trying to hide the fact you have so little respect for other women?
And Heidi – late term abortions happen when the fetus is non-viable. The method used to save the mother’s life might be icky to your feigned delicate sensibilities, but so what? Why should your icky feelings matter to the woman who has to go through that?
I do consider the picture to be a baby.
Interesting. Gileill?
You know as well as me that late term abortions happen, where the baby is halfway out of the vagina and the doctor stabs the baby in the back of the head and sucks out its brain.
Occasionally, yes. Do you know why this happens? A typical scenario where a D and X is the preferred method is that of twins with fetal demise or impending demise of twin A. The dead or dying twin is “stabbed and has its brains sucked out” in order to give the living twin the best chance to survive and the mother the best chance to remain fertile.
The alternatives include inducing labor (both twins die), c-section (might be able to save one, but not particularly good odds and all the risks of c-section, including uterine rupture), waiting for “nature to take its course” which is likely to lead to the triple death of the mother and both twins. A D and E might be possible, but has a higher risk of death of twin B.
So, how many (healthy, wanted) fetuses should die to satisfy your desire not to be slightly grossed out?
Definetly, and most amusing :)
I don’t carry any guilt in losing them, as it was natures way of determining that they did not live.
I don’t see why you should carry any guilt in losing them. However, with respect to “nature’s way”…My pregnancy ended with an obstructed labor. It was nature’s way of saying that the fetus and I should not live. My midwife, a well educated and non-fatalistic CNM, got an OB (a survivor of attempts on his life by anti-abortion advocates) and between us we decided to tell nature to stuff it. He did a c-section, I’m alive and with a living child and nature will just have to cope.
If we want to save early miscarriages, well, more research is needed to do it right*, but I see no reason to believe that it’s an insoluble problem. Why not push for more research into how human reproduction happens and what causes it to go wrong? Fewer miscarriages would be a win for everyone on all sides of the abortion debate, with the possible exception of the extreme anti-natalists.
*Some exceptions apply. Some causes of miscarriage are highly treatable.
“Dumb” doesn’t have anything to do with it, Heidi. The word you’re looking for is traumatized.
So Dianne you can say with confidence that this method doesn’t happen for single babies who would otherwise be perfectly healthy in the womb? This type of an abortion is not an option for the woman who just doesn’t want the baby to “ruin” her career or “spoil” her upcoming holiday? If not then I guess our culture has more ethics than I assumed and thank you for bringing this to my attention.
You seriously think that women get pregnant, wait 20 weeks, then casually decide to get an abortion because it would spoil their holiday, and go merrily on their way? Seriously, you actually think that? If so – what the hell is wrong with you? And where did you get such amazingly messed up ideas about women?
Yes, apparently people are more ethical than you give them credit for. And yes, I, for one, can say with confidence that your delusional fantasy scenario doesn’t happen. Maybe you should try to inform your opinions with actual information, rather than randomly pulling things out of your sick imagination that thinks blastocysts are people and that women are callous bloodthirsty morons. Good riddance.
The psychotic misogyny is strong with this one.
Dianne – can you say with confidence that those are the only types of situations where a D & X happens? Because if it boils down to only “life or death” situations such as those, then I have to give our culture more credit when it comes to ethics. I assumed that a woman could get a partial birth abortion for any reason, not just because one baby might die or her life might be at stake.
Please correct me if I’m wrong here.
So you didn’t answer me. When you think a fetus becomes a human?
Do you think this picture represents a baby or an embryo (18 week fetus)? Is this life or un-human? I feel as though I’m the one getting ready to be amused….
http://ca.images.search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0S0uD1I16pPYgQAM072FAx.;_ylu=X3oDMTBpcGszamw0BHNlYwNmcC1pbWcEc2xrA2ltZw–/SIG=11jsgkjr6/EXP=1336625096/**http%3a//thetripleb.com/photo.htm
I completely agree and I am very happy to hear about how you and your child survived. To think that anyone would attempt to kill an OB because of their extreme views makes me so angry. I’m not supportive of such extreme pro-lifers in the least! Now I ask you, at what point was your child a human? Only after the c-section?
when does a blastocyte become a human?
And I’m assuming your comment means that partial birth abortions are only ever performed when someone would die as a result of not getting a partial birth abortion. Correct?
That question doesn’t make any sense. Where did I say “human”? It’s always “human”. It isn’t a “person”. It has no preferences, capacity for rational thought, or sensation of pain. It does not have moral equivalency to beings that do. Until it has those capacities (pain at 26-30 weeks), there are no ethical issues to even be considered. This is not a difficult concept to understand.
And my comment means what it says – your fantasies about late-term abortions being conducted to suit the casual whims of the mother are not founded in reality.
Do you think this picture represents a baby or an embryo (18 week fetus)?
The embryonic period is between 2 and 8 weeks so it’s not an embryo. Basic biology: the embryonic period is the time when organs are being formed. It is different from the blastulocytic period or the fetal period. According to your link, it was born and had spontaneous respirations, so it’s not a fetus. It’s also not 18 weeks, but 19 weeks. It’s a premature baby, born at 19 weeks gestation and, unfortunately, doomed. I say “unfortunately” for the suffering of the parents, not the baby. It’s doubtful that the poor thing ever developed enough neurons to suffer.
I’d like to be able to prevent that sort of premature labor and death due to premature birth. Oh, wait, I DO prevent that sort of premature birth: I sometimes evaluate women who have had second trimester miscarriages or premature births and if they have a couple of specific problems that cause second and early third trimester pregnancy loss, treat them with a medication that reduces their risk in the next pregnancy. Odd, that, shouldn’t I be looking to abort them all and eat them? It’s almost like people who are pro-choice want to help women complete their pregnancies safely if that’s what they choose.
While on the subject, premature births are strongly associated with poor prenatal care and poverty. Universal health insurance could save some babies like this one by keeping them in utero longer and allowing them to develop enough brain and lung to survive. Do you favor universal health care? Even for undocumented immigrants? Are you willing to have your taxes raised to pay for it?
I seem to remember you saying that you’re Canadian. Are you outraged by the case of the woman who gave birth in a hotel room because she couldn’t get her immigration status regularized quickly enough to have Canadian health insurance? Do you support efforts to process the backlog, even if it means hiring more people to work on it and raising your taxes?
“the more I think about it the more I wonder if pro-lifers genuinely can’t distinguish between an embryo and a child. If they can’t make that distinction, maybe the only thing that keeps them from killing their children or others’ children is the “abortion is wrong” meme.”
Wow, again you leave me speechless Dianne. How about the meme “Murder Is Wrong”?
In any case, I’m sorry you seem to have been so hurt & offended by extreme pro-lifers.
Bring on the tax hike Dianne. If it means that a tiny life gets the chance to live, and that a pregnant woman no matter her immigration status gets the care and respect she deserves because she’s a god damn human- then yes, I would gladly cut out some of the extras in my life to account for the tax hike.
Finally!!!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2012/04/03/male-birth-control-reversible_n_1400708.html
“And here we are right back to bitchez ain’t shit but incubators. What it with the Forced Birth Brigade? Why bother trying to hide the fact you have so little respect for other women?”
And here we are right back to babiez ain’t shit but plasto-glasto-mafucking-blastocysts. What is with the Abortion As Birth Control Brigade? Why bother trying to hide the fact you have so little respect for the most helpless members of our society?
Reinstating an ethics review board would be a fair middle solution for the ongoing battle between pro-life & pro-choicers. Yes abortions would still happen, but only in the sob story cases. And the adoption wait list would decrease. And little lives that didn’t ask to be terminated would be lived out. And yes, woman and men would have to be teensy bit more careful when fucking.
Chow ladies & gents- its been a slice.
It does seem to be something of a cognitive disability – which I’d be accommodating of, except these people vote to take away the freedom of sane people.
“Why bother trying to hide the fact you have so little respect for the most helpless members of our society?”
Because they aren’t people, and they aren’t members of society, you demon-haunted lunatic. You know what? I’m really offended and grossed out by the fact that you reproduced. It’s tragic. But I’m not going to pass laws to keep you from doing it, or institute a parental sanity review board to decide for you. Extend the same courtesy – and go fuck yourself.
We have strayed really far from the point of Jen’s original blog post. If there are ethical issues such as rape pregnancy, incest pregnancy, baby won’t survive outside the womb, mother won’t survive the pregnancy, then why isn’t there an ethical review board in place and why aren’t these the only types of abortions taking place?
Perhaps because US law recognizes that the pregnant person’s right to bodily autonomy is a sufficient reason?
But for an example that more-or-less follows your line of thinking see abortion in Israel. The conditions are broader than what you might approve of – for instance all girls under 17, women over 40 and unmarried women have their requests for abortion approved – but married women aged 17 to 39 need to bring evidence for one of the following: the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, the pregnancy puts them at serious physical or mental risk, the fetus has a significant chance of physical or mental birth defect. Almost all requests that make it to the committees get approved, but it is estimated that a roughly equal number of abortions are performed privately (ie illegally). Those would be married women whose circumstances fall outside of approved criteria. And of course women in the latter category who can’t afford a private abortion are saddled with raising a child they definitely can’t afford.
I object to your characterization of these abortions as done to avoid ‘inconvenience’. Not wanting to raise a child in inappropriate conditions isn’t about ‘convenience’. It is about people putting thought to what a child would actually need and arriving at the conclusion they aren’t likely, at least at the moment, to be capable of providing that.
To muletonic:
So being inclusive of trans men who might be pregnant against their wishes is suddenly wrong?
The use of ‘human’ is misleading. My hair that I shed all the time is human hair. Tumors get cut out all the time that are human – they have human DNA, and its even unique to the individual tumor. Being human does not give entities the right to keep living.
May I mention that I find it utterly disgusting that you’re using the tragic story of your friends to score cheap points in a debate?
Not that you do, score points I mean, but it’s disgusting nevertheless.
The conditions are broader than what you might approve of – for instance all girls under 17, women over 40 and unmarried women have their requests for abortion approved
That’s an easy one then: just don’t get married. If you’re married, get divorced now. Stay with your partner if you want to, but don’t be officially married to him. Apparently, that allows ownership of your body to revert to yourself.
“So being inclusive of trans men who might be pregnant against their wishes is suddenly wrong?”
Be inclusive with a singular “someone” and “they” like a normal person, don’t peacock with some hippie made-up shit.
Exactly. The crucial distinction is that not all things that are “human” are “people”. And my view of “people” is pretty broad, including a good number of primates as well as dolphins. But given that a fetus has none of the qualities that make developed humans as well as higher animals “people”, abortion is always ok. It’s less morally objectionable than shooting a deer or poisoning a mouse. To think otherwise is to revert to religion or metaphysics and grant human tissue some magical status.
Tell your reps in parliament. They can do something about it.
Even more emphasis on the patriarchal nature of marriage in Israel (only very recently civil marriage became a possibility, and only for couples who are prevented from having a religious marriage, though Israel does recognize civil marriages performed elsewhere).
Birth is a risky process. Heidi I’m happy you were
Able to fall in love with your little lives while they
Were still question marks…. As for me, should I
Decide I want a child, I’m not getting attached to
Until it’s out and viable.
Prematurity sucks balls
Trisomy 18 sucks
And HIE Fucking sucks balls! (brain damage that occurs at some point during pregnancy, or pre/post birth)
….. And those are just a few of the situations
I see on a regular basis.
It’s really sad when people fall I. Love with their
Unborn children and it all goes wrong at the last minute
However, that’s not the real debate here
Abortion should be each pregnant person’s choice! And their reason
Should be nobody elses business!
Also go adopt an older kid who would be otherwise stuck in the medical foster system (yes in Canada)
And STFU
Excellent point
Interesting question, which is proposed to have no right answer. First one needs to decide when life begins, it isn’t immoral to have a tumor removed, what most would call a lump of unwanted cells, so the question is when is death of a child better then the life of the child, and/or family of the child.
There is also a problem with man deciding what life is and when it begins. People got around the constitution by saying black people were less than human, because the constitution clearly protected their lives no matter what a judge ruled.
We can’t use science either since if a microbe is found on mars every paper would say that life was found on mars, and scientists would fully back it up. Hell science believed it showed how life began on earth using electricity, filters, etc. The conditions on earth required oxygen for ozine so the amonia wouldn’t break down but it couldn’t be used because it would oxydize stuff. In the end they had 2 types of amino acids both left and right handed, life needs left handed aminos. And that “life,” only 2 percent of product, most of the rest was poisonous to life
The next issue is when does choice begin? Abortion is many times used to avoid consequences. The choice to have sex, naturally, led to pregnancy. Should someone who enjoys drinking at a bar and driving home be free of consequence? Why is sex different, especially if possible life is on the line.
So with this in mind abortion becomes less gray. My experiance with abortion is every single person I know who had one regrets it daily, and will never be same. I feel that there are some reasons, but far fewer than whats allowed the days.