If you're pro-life, how far do you take that?

[Catholic_Lady]

So your hypothetical scenario is, what if there would be MORE abortions overall if abortion became illegal?

That doesn't make much sense, but out of principle, direct killing of an innocent human should never be legally permissable. By the same token, I assume if legalizing rape decreased the instance of rape, most people would still say rape should be illegal.

Because the right to life is an inherent right, just as the right to not be sexually violated is an inherent right, those human rights should always (even if purely by principle) be protected by the law.

It's about safety. The point is: making abortion illegal does nothing to decrease the amount of them. They won't increase substantially because of making it illegal, it's just the difference between safe vs unsafe abortions. If putting an end to abortion is your end goal (a good one I'd support) then you should be against making it illegal, because it doesn't work.

I've said this in another thread. In an ideal world, I'd be pro-life. I don't agree with pro-choice logic, to be honest. I want abortions to stop. But making it illegal just puts those who perform them in danger. There's no point to it. Just like I don't want anybody to shoot heroin, but making it illegal and throwing addicts in prison hasn't helped the problem; it's exasperated it. I believe the same logic applies here. . I don't know what to do in order to convince others to respect the life of the unborn child like you mentioned earlier, but making it illegal "on principle" doesn't make sense because one's principles can't outrank the observable results of actions. This is coming from someone who agrees with you on the moral level.

The difference between heroin use and abortion, is that abortion involves a non consenting victim. Like you, I also am personally against heroin but believe it should be legalized nonetheless. You have to compare abortion to other acts that involve a victim to make for a more accurate analogy.

You are right that we can't force people to respect the right to life of another. But as I said, it is certainly worth striving for. I think an initial step to validating the value of someone's life is to protect it under the law. It isn't the whole story, by far, and needs to be followed up with more. As I said in an earlier post, it is a process that requires time, education, understanding, extra care for pregnant women/single moms, and ultimately, a change of heart in people.

When slavery became illegal in this country, people didn't automatically stop having slaves, and it even caused a war where many lives were lost and blood was spilled as a result. And for many years after that, people still didn't view blacks as fully human. And to this day, racism against African Americans still exists in this country. It was/is a process, but one worth fighting for. It had to start somewhere.