Loosening my pro choice stance.

[Minimalist]

The unwilling mother is also human, and..importantly, legally so... in ways that an unborn child is not.  You wont find many people arguing -for- abortion.  You'll find plenty making a compromise on the issue of a woman's rights.  That's law, that's governance, that's society.  You take issue?

I'm pro-abortion.  Forced childbirth is a primary factor in female impoverishment.  If the government could offer abortions instead of welfare ( which the christards hate, too!) it would be better for all concerned.

[Cecelia]

I'm 100% pro-choice.

Are you willing to tell a thirteen year old rape victim that she has to carry her baby to term?

If you're going to make an exception for rape, then you're punishing what you consider otherwise a child for something it did not do. If you're NOT going to make an exception for rape, then you're forcing a rape victim to carry her rapists child to term, against her will. Neither position makes any sense to me.

Anti-choicers make emotional arguments, using terms like "Kill their baby". They say "Put the baby up for adoption", but never adopt. They don't provide prenatal care to women, and they don't do anything for the child once it's born. Nor do they do anything to make the woman's life easier while she's carrying a fetus inside of her. And they like to ignore rape, because it's inconvenient for them. And when they do address it, they show themselves to not care about actual living people at all. They just care about embryos. That's all they've ever cared about. Just like they only care about soldiers when they're at war, but not when they come home. They only care as far as they have to, so they can give themselves the moral highground. I for one won't let them take that.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Humans are called Homo Sapiens for a reason: more than anything else, it is our cognition which differentiates us from other animals.

[Minimalist]

Humans are called Homo Sapiens for a reason: more than anything else, it is our cognition which differentiates us from other animals.

Some should be stripped of the title.

[Nay_Sayer]

My stance remains the same, Not my womb, Not my choice.

[Aractus]

Until two nights ago i used to think the pro lifer movement was just another faction of religiously charged pseudo science like Young earth creationism.But after reading this essay in opposition to abortion on RW I'm uncertain if I could ever call myself "pro-choice" anymore. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:Why_I...e_abortion

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"In the late 1960's the pro-choice movement made a deliberate, strategic decision to trivialize the abortion debate by dismissing all pro-life arguments as mere Catholic dogma. This made it easy to gloss over the inconvenient, undeniable scientific embryological fact that human life begins at conception in favor of specious arguments regarding church/state separation and accusation that religion "is being forced down our throats." Planned Parenthood today still insists that the question of when life begins is a religious one which varies from woman to woman, apparently mind-dependent rather than reality-dependent. They do draw the line at the old Mayan practice of throwing infants into volcanos, although I don't see why, under their theory, that wouldn't be a protected exercise of religion as well. I've seen more of a reliance on science - embryology, ultrasound - on the pro-life side than on the pro-choice side. In fact, the mainstream pro-choice organizations oppose showing women who are considering abortion ultrasound pictures of the child on the grounds that they are "confusing." It should be noted that the pro-choice side isn't opposed to raising religious arguments when it suits them. Planned Parenthood has hired clergy to promote abortion from a theological standpoint. The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice devotes its very existence to that endeavor. Ironically, even the atheistic Freedom from Religion Foundation employs a religious argument when it comes to abortion - it argues that the practice should be permitted because it isn't expressly forbidden by the Bible."

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For a long time now the American POVs on abortion have puzzled me. The fact that there are two extremes, and normal non-Americans like me get labelled as "pro choice" by the pro-lifers and "pro life" by the pro-choicers. It's really bizarre.

The question of when life begins that you cited above is totally correct - it begins at conception. Or rather a new independent life-form begins then. And it is human, even as a zygote. But it has unusual properties. For the first 2 weeks it can actually split and develop as twins or triplets or more independent life forms, thus creating multiple humans. Furthermore conception itself doesn't take place at the instant the sperm enters the egg, it takes place some 12 or so hours later when the sperm's DNA fuses with the eggs to produce the new unique life form.

At 21 weeks the foetus is developed enough to have a realistic chance to survive past birth if placed in an incubator.

As others have pointed out where the line gets drawn is rather arbitrary. If the foetus has Anencephaly for example, then abortion should be considered as option up until birth itself - and not only should it be considered, but it's the preferred way to manage a pregnancy with the condition. But that's not necessarily going to be the case in all pregnancies - for example imagine you have twins, one is healthy and the other is a brain-dead foetus that has Anencephaly. Well you can't very well go and perform an abortion on just the one affected foetus, therefore you might need to carry it to full term in that situation.

Medical necessities aside, abortion should be an option - but it certainly shouldn't be a recommended option for women.

Now I haven't seen the stats in a while, but the vast majority of abortions occur in the first trimester (before the 13th week of pregnancy), and it is medically the safest option for the mother for an abortion (which should be quite intuitive). In my opinion abortions for medical necessities should continue to be an option for the duration of the pregnancy, but the cutt-off for aborting a healthy foetus from a healthy mother should be around the 18 week mark.

Let's think of another scenario - the mother is diagnosed with cancer and needs to begin chemotherapy immediately to have a chance of living longer than 12 months. She can't have chemotherapy while pregnant, so she and her partner would have to make a decision about whether they want to abort the healthy foetus to begin treatment. In this scenario the foetus could be older than 22 weeks and this would prove a real ethical dilemma to anyone involved in making the decision, but it's still a decision that needs to be made. It shouldn't be prohibited though, and the family shouldn't be judged for choosing to save the life of the mother at the expense of a healthy baby.

[Rev. Rye]

Until two nights ago i used to think the pro lifer movement was just another faction of religiously charged pseudo science like Young earth creationism.But after reading this essay in opposition to abortion on RW I'm uncertain if I could ever call myself "pro-choice" anymore. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:Why_I...e_abortion

"In the late 1960's the pro-choice movement made a deliberate, strategic decision to trivialize the abortion debate by dismissing all pro-life arguments as mere Catholic dogma. This made it easy to gloss over the inconvenient, undeniable scientific embryological fact that human life begins at conception in favor of specious arguments regarding church/state separation and accusation that religion "is being forced down our throats." Planned Parenthood today still insists that the question of when life begins is a religious one which varies from woman to woman, apparently mind-dependent rather than reality-dependent. They do draw the line at the old Mayan practice of throwing infants into volcanos, although I don't see why, under their theory, that wouldn't be a protected exercise of religion as well. I've seen more of a reliance on science - embryology, ultrasound - on the pro-life side than on the pro-choice side. In fact, the mainstream pro-choice organizations oppose showing women who are considering abortion ultrasound pictures of the child on the grounds that they are "confusing." It should be noted that the pro-choice side isn't opposed to raising religious arguments when it suits them. Planned Parenthood has hired clergy to promote abortion from a theological standpoint. The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice devotes its very existence to that endeavor. Ironically, even the atheistic Freedom from Religion Foundation employs a religious argument when it comes to abortion - it argues that the practice should be permitted because it isn't expressly forbidden by the Bible."

Honestly, it'd make more sense to assume life begins when brain waves become detectable (most reliable sources suggest 20 weeks), especially considering that death is generally defined as being when the brain stops functioning. Of course, it's not like ANYONE, pro-choice or not, celebrates the day of their conception. Except maybe people who believe Paul McCartney secretly died in 1966.

[vorlon13]

First line of the quote in the OP is a total derailment.

It's not Catholic dogma, it's Catholic heresy.

They are free to announce a revelation, and come out with a new and improved revised version of their bible, but so far they haven't. So they're fucked.

[Alex K]

I don't understand the point of the OP. Does it contain an argument that I missed? Some people somewhere say life begins here, others don't? Who cares? Also, last time I checked, life by itself was not sacred in any western country. The other stuff about the FFRF sounds like quote mining and is also irrelevant.

[Aractus]

I should supplement my post by saying that unnecessary medical procedures in general should be minimised, my view that a woman can "request" an abortion up to 18 months or otherwise they can have one with a medical diagnosis from a doctor needs to be taken in that context. We still don't want unnecessary abortions, they're not the ideal way to cope with an unplanned pregnancy. In fact most first-born children are the result of an unplanned pregnancy, so it's disingenuous to say that it's an ideal solution. So whilst I agree that the option is important for several reasons, one of which being that it prevents "back ally operations", I don't agree that it should recommended to people by health professionals - they should be given the option, but not given a recommendation of abortion without a medical reason.