In Defense of Pro-Choice

[morimeme1]

Lately discussions regarding abortion laws have been on the rise and I have gotten quite tired of having to explain the same thing to people over and over again so I decided to share a MyTake in which I wish to adress the most common arguments used by those who claim to be Pro-Life (often confused with Anti-abortion). It has been greatly inspired by another wonderful woman who also supports women's rights to choose.

1. Just keep your legs closed.

A poor choice of words. I believe what you meant is: Don't have sex.

SEX. IS. NOT. A. CRIME. Sex is natural and awesome. It is fun and has multiple heath benefits in addition to being a wonderful form of intimacy and connection between people.

Sex is not a privilage reserved only for those who wish to reproduce. It is not inherently wrong or bad. It does not require a punishment and certainly not that of a forced pregnancy (Considering that is a crime against humanity, as recognised by the UN).

Pregnancy is a risk of having sex. Just like wrecking your car is a risk when you drive. Just like breaking a limb is a risk when you go hiking. Just like drowning is a risk when you swim.

We allow people to receive healthcare for all of those situations, despite the risk they took on themselves. We do NOT deny people healthcare based on how they came to need it.

2. Use a condom or birth control! Or both! Tie your tubes! Plan B!

If you have received even the most basic kind of sexual education you would know that not one form of birth control is fool proof. Not one. Not even when doubled.

Hysterectomies and tube tying are irreversible therefore they are not performed just like that. You have to meet certain criteria, which usually includes being around 30 years old and already having children. Also, plenty of people who are not yet ready to become parents might want to have kids in the future. (Not even mentioning that people should not have to undergo surgery, take time off work for recovery time, lose wages, all because some people get their panties in a wad over abortion.

Not everyone can even physically use protection. There are plenty of allergies to condoms, bad reactions to the pill and conflicts with pre existing necessary medications for illnesses that make dual use dangerous.

People are allowed to have unprotected sex and they are allowed to abort.

3. Well, you have to take responsibility, your body isn't just yours anymore, that *child* deserves a chance.

No. We don't. Taking responsibility for our choices means making the best decision to fix the undesirable situation.

Our responsibility is to ourselves first and foremost. It is OUR body being used as an incubator, it is OUR bodily resources being used to sustain potential life, it is OUR health potentially or immediately at risk, it is OUR entire lives and bodies that will be impacted by pregnancy and birth, let alone raising a child.

Whether you say the fetus is or is not a part of our body - you lose. If it is NOT part of our body then it has no place being inside of, attached to and taking from OUR bodies without our consent. If it IS part of our body, we are in charge of what we do with it and whether we want it there or not.

4. Anything related to "God" and in terms of using it for judgement and condemnation

Your God is violently pro-abortion.

Your God has slaughtered first borns, commanded dashing children against stoned till they die, ripping fetuses from their mothers' wombs, and even providing an abortion potion to a man because he suspected his wife of infidelity. Part TWO of this - your God has no place in healthcare. Your God is not everyones' God.

5. Abortion is murder! Youŗe all killers!

Actually no. Law, science and medicine disagrees. You can have your opinion, but your opinion is wrong if it is against facts. A fetus is nothing but a clump of cells incapable of thought or feeling, it is not even capable of pain until 18 weeks. Life does not start at conception, life is a continuous process that changes form and just because two gametes happened to meet at the right time does not mean they have some universal rights to become a human being.

6. You are so selfish! Think of all the infertile couples and other people who can''t have babies! Just give it to a family to love them! Give it up for adoption!

No. Hell no. That is a viable option for someone willing to go through pregnancy and childbirth. Plenty of people are NOT willing. Fertile people's uteruses are not fetus factories for infertile couples. Their issues are no one else's burden.

Side note: Being selfish is also NOR. A CRIME. We can be as selfish as we want with our own bodies because they're ours.

7. What if your mother aborted you? Be thankful she was pro-life!

She isn't pro life. My mother and many mothers are pro-choice. If my mother had aborted me, I never would have been sentient to know or care or be aware. Person known as me wouldn't even exist.

I would NEVER have wanted my mother to only keep me out of obligation. I would NEVER want to have been FORCED on my mother. I am infinately thankful that she CHOSE to have me out of love. Not obligation. Life is a gift and no gift should be forced to be given, how else could we appreciate the chance at life we have been given. And we both fight for and defend abortion access and reproductive rights of women!

8) It should only be allowed due to rape and health issues!

Says who? You? What authority do you have to tell people what they can and can not do? You are now trying to dictate which potential life is worthy and which isn't. If the pregnant person doesn't get to choose for themselves, the fuck makes you think you do? Being raped is not some magic thing that grants us pity-choice of being granted control of our bodies. There is nothing different except for you anti-choicers thinking you are the judge and jury presiding over other people's healthcare decisions.

9. What about the father's rights!?

Maybe, just maybe, if dudes are SO concerned with their potential offspring, they should take the proactive approach and NOT sleep with someone who does not want to be pregnant and who would abort! 😮 Crazy, I know! But, his rights end where her body begins. Thay can talk about their feelings, they can discuss both sides, but it comes down to the pregnant person to make the choice, end of it.

In conclusion: I get that abortion is not for everyone, same as children. So we all would be better off just minding our own business. Don't like abortions? Don't have one. It's that easy.

Peace. ✌

[John_Doesnt]

Nobody should have the authority to force their morals onto somebody. If people disagree with abortion that's fine, but they shouldn't make it illegal for other women to do it.
Just like I disagree with some things women do with their bodies, but I'm not gonna pass laws against it.

[morimeme1]

Exactly!!! So many people fail to understand this!

[nightdrot]

The British statesman and political philosopher Edmund Burke wrote, "The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do as they please. We ought see what it will please them to do before we risk congratulations." Therein lay the problem with laws that permit abortion on demand.

A society that premises its law as "Choice"- to use the locution of abortion rights advocates - effectively leaves open the question of the value of human life. It becomes not a standing principle, but a subjective judgment to each individual. In such a society, human life becomes not an end in itself, but mere instrument. Life becomes not an object whose preservation is the highest standard, but rather a convenience to be maintained or not according to the satisfaction of another's will.

We shape our laws and then our laws shape us - see also the civil rights laws of the 1960s which have effected a revolution in race relations. (The idea that a black man and a white man cannot sit together at the same lunch counter is as alien to this generation as Neptune. Yet in 1965 it was pretty much the norm.)

Inherent then in the pro-choice argument is the idea that life has no value save that which each person chooses to attach to it. It denies society any authority to make a collective judgment on such questions. Therefore, in this view, the law may not afford protection to life except at some arbitrarily defined (and inherently subjective) point.

This then conduces to an assertion of power over rights. Life is maintained not as its own end, but according to the will of the person who, effectively, controls it because they can. An ethic of convenience is established and it is a slippery slope on which to build a culture and a legal edifice.

Such a society will not value life that sees life as not an end, but as a means to some other end. Indeed, that is why at about the same time as the culture began to shift on the abortion question we also saw a rise in child abuse, spousal abuse, divorce, out of wedlock births and other social pathologies. These were not unrelated phenomena.

Aristotle said that the first questions of politics are, "How ought we to live? What kind of a people do we wish to be?" The implicit answer of those who support abortion on demand is, in effect, that it is nobody's business. Predictable results follow. One cannot expect the society to absent itself from collective moral judgments on the value of life and then expect an ethical social order to result.

[morimeme1]

If abortions are to be banned way more unplanned, unloved children will grow up in abusive families and povery, I do not see how this would ever benefit society as a whole, just bring more crime and illiteracy to it. It is not as much a subjective judgement of value as it is an evaluation of ability to bring up a wholesome member of society under normal conditions and not destroy the life of another, already functioning member. The debate of when life actually starts will never cease to exist as it is also a matter of subjective judgement.

[morimeme1]

And correlation most often does not imply causation.

[nightdrot]

Your point on correlation is an evasion. There is a moral predicate for the social conditions that we find. They do not occur in a vacuum. There is cause and effect.

Your first point has absolutely no empirical data to back it up. We have an ocean of unloved and abused children with abortion. It is illogical to assume that a society that sees life as expendable is not likely to behave better than one that cherishes life.

Be clear, the "pro-choice" argument is many things, but it is NOT, at its intellectual root, an argument based on compassion. Rather it is a radical - in the ancient Greek sense - assertion of absolute autonomy even at the risk of subjugating the other.

As to when life begins, it cannot be at any moment other than conception, scientifically speaking. When a sperm joins the egg, life results. That life will not grow into a duck or a dog, but a human. A thing cannot be other than what it is.

The assertion of viability or the third trimester as the "cut-off" for abortion is one of convenience. Try defining the scientific and moral difference between the baby one day before the first day of the third trimester and one day after. You'll quickly see the point.

The bottom line is that you are trotting out typical shibboleths of the pro-choice argument. It is not the product of a more civil society, Indeed, it is the product of a culture with a radical sense of autonomy that reserves to itself the right to define life according not to any objective standard, but to individual convenience.

A society so based is not likely to produce a more compassionate society, let alone one that holds the individual morally responsible for the consequences of his or her actions. To the contrary, you will tend to see a society that defines "right" entirely in terms of a self-aggrandizing ethic. "I have the power to choose, ergo anything I choose must be right."

Once the value of life is rendered subjectively, many bad things are apt to follow. As history shows.

[morimeme1]

That is a very biased view that you are trying to hide under pretentious, overly complicated writing style that if dissected it is visible that most of those sentences do not hold substance. Yes there is cause and effect but it is very misleading to just make assumptions based on that, there is a stron correlation between the sell rates of ice cream and the number of wildfires, but it does not mean one cause the other. "We have an ocean of unloved and abused children", and you really want to further expand it? In fact, there is empirical evidence, if you look it up you will find that in the next 30 years after abortion was legalized in the us crime rated rastically dropped, those criminals were simply not born. A society where abortion is banned will not become a society that cherishes life, abortions were not really a thing in the previous centuries and they were nor safe, nor peaceful times. The conception is not scientifically the point where life starts as the egg and the sperm are also living cells therefore life is a continuous process that simply changes form and has no known beginning. For clarity purposes: I do not personally agree with abortion past first trimester. In addition, humans destroy whole populations, living conditions of so many other species and easily bring up other animals just to slaughter them for their own convenience and that is fine, I fail to see why would a human be a special case, we are as a specie more parasitic than any other.

[nightdrot]

Interesting. Whole books of moral philosophy have been written on the subject and you find me overly complicated? Seriously?

As to cause and effect, if you have a better explanation, do feel free to proffer it. A society that defines itself by rights is not apt to take anything other than a subjective view of anything under its ambit.

Oh, by the way, I worked for a Member of the U. S. House and who was a member of the Judiciary Committee. Your stat is not correct. Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 and abortion laws in the states had been liberalizing before then.

Crime rates rose through the 80s and only began to decline in the 90s. This after the enactment in the late 80s of harsher crime laws and an aging of the population. You were speaking of correlations and causation - you need to more closely examine your own data.

In any case, as I noted, we shape our laws and our laws shape us. If we accept, as the law now does, the premise that life has no objective value meriting legal protection, then the pre-existing to subjectivize the value of life will be reinforced.

That is the point. If men were angels, we would have no need of laws. Law reigns in the impulse to recur to self. Not perfectly or completely, but as we saw with the civil rights laws, a change in the law sustained a change in the cultural ethic. That was my point,.

As regards when life begins, then answer my question. What is the scientific difference between the day before the third trimester and the day after. Define it scientifically. Then answer, if at the moment of conception, does the thing so conceived have the potential to become a dog? If not, why not?

Your arguments do not bear examination. You are recurring, as I said, to un-thought shibboleths and are calling them arguments. As it is, you are merely postulating excuses for a conclusion you drew before you began to make the argument. Suffice to say, that empirically and epistemologically gets it backward.

[morimeme1]

You are not really adressing the points I made but fine. When a women is being considered for abortion the term is calculated starting from the last day of her lest mestruations, not the actual conception day as it is impossible to pinpoint it, therefore that 3 month term is just an approxination of how far into the development the fetus has grown, yes there may not be an exact difverece between the day before the third trimester and the day after but that is the approximate time for something to develop, I am not sure exactly what as I do not support abortion that late, I support the one until the end of first trimester because it marks the 18 weeks at which the fetus becomes capable of experiencing pain, until then it is a multicellular, completely dependant organism that does not feel pain and does not have a concious existence so I do not consider it an equal to a grown person with feelings, dreams, hopes, memories, people who love them and some input into society. Yes it can not become a dog, but it might not become a living person either. Same with human sperm, it will never become a dog but with this train of thought we could as well say that masturbation is genocide and oral sex is cannibalism. By illegalizing abortion we will not create a better society, just make more people's lives miserable, both the mothers who are forced to have unwanted children (or just try to leap off the stairs) and those children. That is all I am saying. If you think that makes sense and will bring any good, I guess I cannot convince you.

[nightdrot]

Perhaps I could better address your questions if you used proper paragraphs and sentence structure. As it is, all I am seeing is a word blob and I have to constantly recur to what you wrote to see if I am hitting the points.

If you wish to be understood then you are obliged to make yourself understandable. As it is, the last posting was utterly unreadable.

Please attempt to re-write and re-send and I will try to respond to your questions. As it is, I am left to guess what you are attempting to say and then infer your meaning.

[morimeme1]

Oh you ran into some actual scientific facts as I answered your question in the same style as previously and now choose to just blame ME for writing in a language that is incomprehensible? Wow, ok. Good day to you sir.

[nightdrot]

My response was written in proper English and was based on a solid philosophical premise. Yours was by no means the former and as I have pointed out your premises are erratic where not erroneous.

The point is that you said I did not address your questions. Frankly, I did not see a question mark in a single sentence of any of the word blobs you sent. Since you were arguing my premises, I assumed that I had identified your points. When you said that I was not, it then became obvious that you needed to write more clearly if I was going to be able to ferret out what you were attempting to say.

Please, do not attempt to fault me for the errors of your method. To repeat, if you wish to be understood, you must make yourself understandable. This you self-evidently did not do.

With that, good day.

[morimeme1]

You made your arguments to which I responded and you went on taking as if I had not, just repeating the same thing all over. I had no questions. I understand that you feel superior by writing the way they did way back in the early 20th century, but if you choose to be on the internet and interact with the community here, you should get acquainted with the writing etiquette that exists here. You can keep your pompous sentences for formal environments.

[morimeme1]

All I did was answer coherently with a step by step process to your question, if you truly think you are so smart, I think you should be able to understand what I wrote, since every normal person would have no problem reading that.

[nightdrot]

Except you didn't. I posed questions to you in response to your premises that you either did not answer or - because your writing was so poor - I could not ferret out.

In either case, tracing first causes, it is logical to assume that any miscommunication had as it start your failure to write in clear English. Pat yourself on the back as you will, the fact that I had to rummage through a word salad to decode your meaning is the heart of the issue.

To repeat, write in proper English, with proper sentence structure and paragraphs, and I am sure that I will be able to respond to you. As it is, I DID write specific questions in clear English and at least so far as I can tell, you did not respond.

That uncertainty on my part having its pedigree in your sloppy written English.

P. S. I thought you were done.

[morimeme1]

Ok, now I get you are a man and don't get anything about women, scientifically or otherwise so I will be as kind to try again out of my wish to educate you.
A step by step answer to your first question:
1) Woman walks into an abortion clinic to get an abortion.
2) The term of her pregnancy is the number of days which have passed since her last period because it is not possible to know the exact day of conception (usually).
3) A fetus has different development stages which include first heartbeat detection, formation of CNS and other significant events.
4) As a result of what I just said we can deduce that there may not be a scientific difference exactly between the day before the third trimester and the day after but that exact time correlates to a certain stage of development for a fetus.
5) Reminder: I do not support abortions that are conducted later than the first trimester.
6) The first trimester marks the first 18 weeks after which the fetus becomes capable of experiencing physical pain. (which in my subjective opinion is important as before that it is just a multicellular organism incapable of pain or posessing conscious existence)
7) What I just said makes a fetus inferior to a grown human being.(in my subjective opinion)

(further explanation coming)

[morimeme1]

Answer to your second question:
1) The conceived thing does not have the potential to become a dog and if I have to explain why, I might think I am dealing with a retarded person.
2) The problem is that a human sperm also only has potential to become human. If you choose this train of thought and analyse it further you will see that either it means that you have subjectively attributed more moral value to a formation of two gametes (sex cells that combined make a zygote and later a fetus) than to one separate gamete. Objectively it makes no sense.
3) So if you follow that train of thought even further and choose to use the potentiality argument, it can be deduced that a sperm is equally valuable as a fetus (because pro-choicers disregard the importance of development stage) and therefore masturbation (which results in ejaculation outside the womb) is genocide as so many potential humans were lost in vain and oral sex (which often results in ejaculation into the digestive tract) is cannibalism as so many potential humas were digested without even being given a chance to fertilize an egg and become human.

[morimeme1]

My own side note:
Considering all the knowledge I have about human psyche, behaviour patterns, our society and my own personal observation, I can only come to a conclusion that abolishing abortion by law will not benefit out society because:
1) we are already facing overpopulation;
2) we have abolished natural selection almost completely so that just adds strenght to my first point here;
3) More individual lives will be made miserable, both the mothers who will be forced to have unwanted children and the children themselves.

I am not capable of explaining it any more coherent, so if you still have trouble reading, that is just your own ignorance speaking.

[nightdrot]

Curious, how did you come to this conclusion?: " What I just said makes a fetus inferior to a grown human being.(in my subjective opinion)."

Also, please note, you made exactly my point. You make the determination of the value of human life a subjective judgment and not an objective standard. You therefore lack any substantive basis for asserting the value of life as both legal and moral proposition at any point. It is rather what you willfully choose it to be.

You have explicitly made my point. This then conducing to the problem that follows being that if it is human at any given point, it must be human at all points. All you have done is made a subjective judgment about when that life deserves to be protected.

Your second point in a non-sequitur: "The problem is that a human sperm also only has potential to become human. If you choose this train of thought and analyse it further you will see that either it means that you have subjectively attributed more moral value to a formation of two gametes (sex cells that combined make a zygote and later a fetus) than to one separate gamete. Objectively it makes no sense."

That is no more true than to say an arm is a whole person. It is not. Join sperm and egg, you get a human - indeed, as you acknowledge, it cannot be anything else. Separately, they are not human. Just as you are not your arm, or elbow, etc.

Your last point is problematic. We have abortion and we have every problem that you say we would have if we did not have abortion. You have reduced the moral/sociological problem to a crude mathematics that, in fact, you cannot prove. At worst, outlaw abortion on demand and you would be net better off having saved the lives of children. All the other problems existing in either case.

As the poet said, "You cannot make straight the crooked timber of humanity." You simply, by semantic fiat, assume that abortion would somehow cause those problems. That is morally dubious and logically problematic.

Second point:

[nightdrot]

P. S. Ignore "Second Point" at the end. It was left from editing and I meant to delete it.

[morimeme1]

1) I came to that conclusion (subjective) based on comparing the fetus and a grown human who already has memories, feelings, thoughts, people that love him/her. Yes a fetus might one day have all that, but it comes down to the old potentiality argument:"if x has the potential to be y, then x should be treated as y", but we don't follow that principle anywhere else, for example, I am a medical student and so have a very high potential to become a doctor, but I am not treated as one".
2)"You make the detedmination of the value of human life a subjective judgement and not an objective standard."
I know that, that is my whole point in defending "pro-choice" because there is no universal standard and if there is one to be determined by law it is still based on subjective judgement.
3)"Separately they are not human."
You see, that is also a subjective judgement, together they are not yet human either. Scientifically speaking. And attributing value and even rights to something solely because two cells just happened to meet at the right place at the right time just seems unfair. People have fought for rights throughout history, they have never been given so lightly.

[nightdrot]

As regards your first point,

1) Now take that principle out from where you conveniently left it. If it is subjective and not rooted in any practical objective standard, what stops you, as you inconsistently do, from allowing abortions after the third trimester?

Indeed, why can you not countenance - as the governor of Virginia seemed to do - infanticide? (We will give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he misspoke.)

The point being that once you fall back - particularly in law - on subjectivity, as Orestes Brownson pointed out, you cease to speak of rights and define right and wrong only in terms of convenience, will and power. If there is no right or wrong, but thinking only makes it so - you have just opened the gates of hell. Again, as history amply and repeatedly demonstrates.

As to your second point, no that is not subjective. The human person is the totality of itself. Your elbow does not reason. Your elbow has no use or purpose separate from the whole being. That is not speculative. That is fact.

The sperm separate from the egg is nothing. It has no function or life separated to itself. That is not speculative or subjective. That is science, full stop - and from it certain moral implications follow.

[nightdrot]

Quick follow-up to your last point. Two cells meet at a certain point of an act of will. It is not random. Consequences flow from actions. We expect the adult to take the consequences of his or her choices upon themselves. That is the start of a responsible social order.

As to fighting for rights, they cannot exist in your formulation. Natural rights - a function of natural law - exists outside of the individual and are revealed through historical experience.

For you, there are no rights, only an act of will. If you decide the baby is human at whatever point, only at that point do you confer rights upon it. Its rights are the product of your will, not something outside of both of you.

[morimeme1]

1) It is to an extent random - just because you have sex it doesn't mean you will necessarily become pregnant, it is more about luck than anything else.
2) Don't you think that an abortion is also taking responsibility in a sense, it does have lasting emotional impact as well as potential physical impact as many women can't have children arter abortion.
3) What stops me from allowing abortions after the third trimester is my own moral compass (as I said everything in this debate about morality is subjective). I believe it to be a good compromise as there is still enough time to make a choice and not enough to call it infanticide.
4) Yet we must recognise that there is not universal "right" or "wrong" as those are concepts created by society and used by the law in order to create as safe of an environment as possible so that people could co-exist as efficiently as possible.

[nightdrot]

In brief:

1) To start, your qualifier - "not necessarily" - is an evasion. If the time of the month is right and the two individuals are healthy, the consequences are predictable enough. Suffice to say, there is only one way to make a baby. With multi-billions on the planet, there is only way they got here.

2) No, you are not taking responsibility. Rather, you are foisting the consequences of your actions on another living being, depriving that being of its life. More to the point, as that living being has no means to assert its own rights nor to defend itself, it is an assertion of power in the absence of restraint.

Suffice to say, taking the consequences for one's actions means accepting the responsibility those actions confer. Not evading them by conferring your choice upon another.

3) Your compromise is illogical measured in terms of your own objective standard. If the child is not a human life, and your will is the sole determinant of right and wrong, then there is really no operative moral principle. Merely your convenience.

5) There is no right and wrong? So slavery is perfectly fine? The Holocaust was just a random option? No, morals are known imperfectly but they exist. We learn them through time and circumstance, experience and reflection over time.

Suffice to say, if you are right, then there is no crime that we cannot justify. Indeed, to speak of women's rights of any kind is an absurdity. There is no objective moral metric, but to repeat, there is no right or wrong, but only thinking makes it so. Thus, if you are deprived of your rights, you were actually deprived of nothing. You cannot have lost that which never existed.

[morimeme1]

1) Yes, that is it, rights and morals are simply products of our collective immagination, just like money and power. At the time when slavery was happening it seemed perfectly normal for slave holders, they did not feel like it was wrong. But since empathy and care for a close human being is embedded in our dna to make sure we do create further generations instead of slaughtering everyone we see we derive our morals from that feeling. If you were to encounter beings from another planet with a different culture it might be pretty hard to explain to them why we consider one thing right and another - wrong.
2) I simply do not agree with the statement that it is the same as foisting the consequences of your actions on another living being as the being in itself is the consequesce and you decide what to do with it. Just like one person here said: robbing banks, murder, etc. is taking something away from someone else. Abortion is terminating a living creature that exists solely by taking sustenance from your body. A being that can't live with the assistance of literally anyone else other than the body it is embedded in. A being that has no conscious existence.
3) I am not excusing people who are being irresponsible enought to use abortion as birth control (while I do believe that if someone is so stupid they should not reproduce), but there are many people who do take necessary precautions and still get pregnant and it would be virtually impossible to determine what was the case in any particular situation.

[nightdrot]

The problem is that you have already lost the argument. There is no right or wrong. So yours is just a random opinion with no particular validity or claim on anyone else, let alone society as a whole. Every assertion you have made, without exception, is simply your opinion and is not rooted in any principle, fact or extrapolation of fact.

So, the Germans hate the Jews, there is no principle to which you can point to object to their extermination. As to that whole empathy, thing, in Germany between 1933 and 1945 it was notoriously lacking. Again, just random chance and too bad.

Oh, and in that connection, just because morals are hard to understand does not negate the fact that they exist. The laws of physics are equally hard to understand and subject to constant revision, but we know that they exist.

Suffice to say, I could go on, but as you recur to no principles then you cannot object if your opinions are not accepted. Every point you have made is negated in your making it. All that is left now is for the stronger party to prevail through force of will.

[nightdrot]

Just as an exclamation mark of the point, as Eric Metaxas said, "The logical conclusion of relativism is absurdity. Non-sense. A worldview that undermines its own premises."

As you indeed just demonstrated.

In a related vein: "We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires."

[morimeme1]

Yeah, whatever you wish to believe, I just believe in humanity and it has become apparent that we are world's apart on that. Have a good rest of your life.

[nightdrot]

Well, world's apart we may be, but by your own logic, your argument no longer matters. That said, enjoy your life of existential irrelevance.

Cheers!

[Grobmate]

1. "SEX. IS. NOT. A. CRIME. Sex is natural and awesome. It is fun and has multiple heath benefits in addition to being a wonderful form of intimacy and connection between people."

Using firearms is also fun. Most fun things come with responsibility as do all rights.

Conception is natural too. And because both parties were irresponsible.. naturally it happened.

"(Considering that is a crime against humanity, as recognised by the UN)"

Crimes against children are. I suggest acquainting yourself with the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, which have several articles which are directly against abortion. Since you wish use the UN as an agreed source of authority.

2. If you have received even the most basic kind of sexual education you would know that not one form of birth control is fool proof. Not one. Not even when doubled.

The amount of contraception failure compared to success is so minuscule that this is totally invalid. Lowering the risk of conception is indeed doubled and tripled by the number of birth control measures employed. Go and study the reason model. The same cause analysis identifies irresponsible intercourse as a root cause.

3. No. We don't. Taking responsibility for our choices means making the best decision to fix the undesirable situation.

No. Prevention and proactive steps are always better than recovery controls. This is an irresponsible stance right here.

4. Your God is violently pro-abortion.

I don't believe in the existence of Gods. Biblical and religious arguments are fruitless because they assume that everybody recognises the same point of authority. This is known as a nebulous argument.

5. "A fetus is nothing but a clump of cells incapable of thought or feeling, it is not even capable of pain until 18 weeks."

Pain is not a requirement to qualify as life.

6. "No. Hell no. That is a viable option for someone willing to go through pregnancy and childbirth"

A more viable option would also be to take responsibility in the first place and prevent pregnancy. The only time this isn't the case is rape.

7. This a stupid argument from Pro-life people and is again a nebulous argument. If our arses were pointy, we could shit in bottles and save the environment but they aren't.

8. "You are now trying to dictate which potential life is worthy and which isn't."

No. The UN rights of the child are clear on this. We aren't dictating anything about potential life, but actual life.

9. "Maybe, just maybe, if dudes are SO concerned with their potential offspring, they should take the proactive approach and NOT sleep with someone who does not want to be pregnant and who would abort! Crazy"

Actually unless it is rape, both people make a decision on whether or not to have intercourse. Both people should also decide prior to intercourse whether they want children. In any case both have a responsibility to prevent conception via birth control.

I don't have a right to tell Women what to do with their bodies. Society does and hence it has laws. The government passes laws by democratic process by persons of responsibility elected by the populous.

If you don't agree with the laws of that society, nobody is forcing you to stay in it against your will.

The idea that sex is purely transactional and free of consequences is a modern one, and in my opinion a stupid one at that.

If it were transactional, it would not require consent now would it. And if it is, it would require a contract of consent or a memorandum of understanding between both parties. Luckily the inmates running the asylum have not progressed thing that far to appease the subjective sensibilities of the irresponsible.

[Grobmate]

Error Correction for clarity

If it were transactional, it would not require consent now would it. And if it isn't, it would require a contract of consent or a memorandum of understanding between both parties. Luckily the inmates running the asylum have not progressed things that far to appease the subjective sensibilities of the irresponsible.

[morimeme1]

Just to be clear, I personally do not support the irresponsible use of abortion as a birth control method but since if you happen to get pregnant even on birth control it would be impossible to separate those who just were unlucky from those who brought it on themselves so it seemed unfair to allow one abortion over the other, same as in rape cases as the biggest argument of those "pro-life" is about how every life is precious and it would just be hypocritical at least coming from them. Plus people who are just that dumb should not even be parents in my opinion. Abortion is also a form of taking responsibility because it too leaves a lasting emotional impact and sometimes physical too as many women are left unable to have children later. Yes it is a potential life as it yet has no conscious existence and might prove to not be viable to even be born alive later on.

[Naydyonov]

1. Just keep your legs closed.

Sex is natural — yes. Hunger is natural — yes. And yet we control hunger by working efficiently in order to stop ourselves from being hungry. Equally we can control our sex. A good percentage of abortions are done by women who simply did not care to use contraception. At the same time not many people deny themselves food. Food > Sex. Thus, there are natural needs more important than sex. Equally, if healthy people can control their food intake then they can do the same with sex. Obese people can eat themselves to death, as long as I don't have to pay for them. However, when their obesity effects my wallet, then I have a direct say.
As pregnancy entails the formation of a new person, it automatically effects other people. (That's the point of society: collective action to help ourselves and others)

In essence: do what you want as long as it only entails you; when it involves other people, others also have a say.

Bonus example: societal protection for victims of child/spousal abuse. We try to protect kids from shitty parents, despite the child being theirs. Why? Because we feel we have a responsibility to do so. It does not matter who the child is, just because it is not ours doesn't mean we cannot have a say in how that child is treated.

«Pregnancy is a risk of having sex. Just like wrecking your car is a risk when you drive. Just like breaking a limb is a risk when you go hiking. Just like drowning is a risk when you swim.»

Literally no. Driving is meant to take you from Point A to Point B. Swimming: Point A to Point B. Hiking: Point A to Point B plus views. Not of these were created to get a person killed or injured.
Sex? Sex: Creation of children.
Sex is meant to produce offspring. Enjoyment of it allows us to desire it.
Creating children through sex is the same thing as driving a car: Point A to Point B.

On a physical level we mostly attain enjoyment because we satisfy biological needs. Eating is enjoyable because the food tastes good; food keeps us alive. Drinking is enjoyable because is refreshes us; water keeps us alive. Sex keeps the species alive. Only way to do that is by having women be impregnated through sex.

[morimeme1]

Then how about we work on educating the masses more about the forms of contraception and risks involved rather than just make abortion illegal which alone will only create more problems?

[Naydyonov]

The masses know about contraception. Many just choose not to use it. They know that, if anything, they can just terminate the pregnancy.
Contraception has been widely available in North America for decades. It is why no one needs education regarding internet: it has been around long enough for 99% of people to know about it.

The solution: paid abortion.
Say, $2000. The $2000 can be paid at once or can be taken as a debt. 5 years interest free.

$400/10 months = $33 per month.

If the woman is ready to pay for her mistake then she can do whatever.

Now an abortion costs up to $1000. Though, in Canada the cost of the procedure seems to be $300 as a standard.
So, whatever the cost is, the money is used to pay for the procedure, with the rest going to government services meant for children, like foster care.

[morimeme1]

Well yeah, it shouldn't be covered by insurance ir the goverment. Where I live it is up to 300€ per procedure. I am not excusing the irresponsible people but it's not like they are counting on abortion (it is a horrible experience both physically and mentally for the woman), it is more that everyone just thinks it won't happen to them so they opt for the pull&prey method (because "condoms are uncomfortable", "pills mess with hormones and have side effects" and abstinence is just not an option, let's not lie to ourselves) and with that psychology abortion ban will not change their behaviour, just have bad consequences on society as a whole. If a woman has more than 1 abortion she is just not right in the head and should not create children at all.

[Naydyonov]

"and abstinence is just not an option, let's not lie to ourselves"
But it is. Last few centuries have shown that. People abstaining until marriage.

Plus, unlike food, sex is not an immediate need. You do not die from the lack of sex. Equally, unlike with food, self pleasure is a method to diminish the need. You cannot eat air to make your body think it doesn't need food.

" If a woman has more than 1 abortion she is just not right in the head and should not create children at all."
When abortion is viewed as normal, moral, then it is completely possible for good women to go through with abortions. It is why our society views child abuse as damaging while another society sees nothing in it. The parent may be a good person who believes hitting a child and yelling at them is an effective method, simply because that's the accepted method of conduct.
By showing them that there are other ways to deal with issues, many would likely start changing their behaviour.

It is why people change sides politically. Because they come to understand that their views are incorrect or immoral and so they switch over to the other side.
Example: during the Hungarian revolution many Soviet troops were reluctant to take action against the protesters. Equally, there were reports that some of them were switching onto the sides of the Hungarians.
Not only that, but Soviet POW from Afghanistan, being housed in Switzerland, pleaded to let them stay there and live there.

Because they may have gone into Hungary with the belief of International Communism but gotten out of there with the belief of self-determination for nations. Both before and after the person is equally as good or as bad by their nature. They simply come to understand that their held beliefs were wrong.

[NYCQuestions1976]

Full disclosure: I'm legally pro-choice and morally pro-life. Libertarian. The law is the law and is necessary. I personally believe there's a difference between "pro-choice" and "pro-abortion". However, if someone is going to say "my body, my choice" (regardless of the topic), that's fine and accurate... but you need to add "my wallet" to that slogan. You can't claim you don't want government making medical decisions for individuals and then turn to the government and use government money (taxpayer dollars) to facilitate those decisions. That's hypocrisy.

People should also now about demographics when it comes to abortion. 13% of the population of the United States is African American, yet 51% of the abortions that are performed in the United States are African American fetuses. Not ALL minorities, just specifically African American. 51%! 13% of the population, 51% of the abortions. Again, the law is the law... but that's staggering...

Also, over 90% of the abortions that take place in the Asian American community are female fetuses. Over 90%! Apparently something to do traditional Asian culture wanting the first born to be male. Again, staggering...

So I guess I'd sum it up as: "Pro-choice, but precede with caution and knowledge." 👍

[kelsey_disney]

Great take! What’s sad is that it’s only straight white males trying to take away our rights. They shouldn’t control our bodies. Times up

[blythely]

So many logical fallacies

[kelsey_disney]

@blythely aww what’s wrong? Think women shouldn’t have rights?

[blythely]

Straw Man much?

[morimeme1]

I just love how most people (ekhem, usually men) decide to drop one random sentence without trying to back it up in any way and call it an argument lol

[blythely]

That's the very essence of "my body my choice": drivelous.

[morimeme1]

I'm pretty sure there wouldn't even be such a debate if men could get pregnant.

[TonyMetal_86]

Women were born to be pregnant so accept the facts, debate pr no debate... a woman will impregnated by a MAN

[morimeme1]

So men deserve to live a good, fulfilling interesting life while women just live to be pregnant. Wow. Really wow, never thought I would meet someone from the dark ages nowadays.

[Poormanscomedian]

@blythely She is a little rich girl living in a fantasy world trying to get even with her parents because they were strict. Rebellion is common for know it all little rich girls.

[MackToday]

The slow loss of abortion rights due to right wing fanatics forcing their word view on you. Sucks doesn't it? This is what happens when you push a far left agenda, riot in the streets, wave the hammer and sickle around. Rant about killing people all over the internet, attack free speech, gun rights. People become afraid of you and start supporting the other side. Then the other side starts doing shit like this. Get fitted for your Nazi uniform next if this gets further out of control. Don't say enough people didn't warn you of what could happen to zee if zee kept at it.

[blythely]

What is a right?

[morimeme1]

This is the top1 weird combination of random words and incorrect statements I have read this month probably, and that says a lot knowing this site.

[MittenstheGlove]

This was an excellent MyTake 9. Is the final cop out. If you care about that, you should have in-depth conversation with a partner or potential partner. Find someone else, because you had the choice to pursue her at the end of the day.

[morimeme1]

Thank you.

[Poormanscomedian]

Laws are a code based on morals. according to what you are saying.
Murder is ok, robbing banks would be ok, who am I to say robbing banks are wrong? Getting drunk and hitting them with a car is ok, who am I to say that is wrong? If 90% of the population says that is wrong, who are they to say that? You lose this argument badly and sound like fool. The truth is more than 50% of population are now against Abortion. You can lie, you can deny this , but that is the fact. 81% is against abortion after 6 weeks. If you want to be a bad person and kill children you need to be in prison or death row. Too bad you don't have any morals and don't know what is wrong or right. Again, that is what Prison is for. People like you and it is full of people like you.

[zagor]

Sorry Bud, but robbing banks, murder, etc. is taking something away from someone else. Abortion is terminating a living creature that exists solely by taking sustenance from your body. A being that can't live with the assistance of literally anyone else other than the body it is embedded in. A being that has no conscious existence.

[Poormanscomedian]

@zagor Sounds like bull shit. It is a created life that is snuffed out , like a mobster snuffs out another mobster to gain more territory.

[zagor]

Wrong. It is a multi-celled lifeform completely dependent on exactly ONE other being for it's continued existence. And is nothing like snuffing out an independent thinking organism.

[morimeme1]

@zagor Thank you, the interesting thing is that you just stated a scientific fact and he said that it sounds like bs, referencing my point #5, some people are just so ignorant and up their own ass they will simply deny facts and hold on to their opinion even if it is simply wrong.

[Poormanscomedian]

God says , I knew you in the womb, that is all I need to know. I also know that next Justice will over turn Row V Wade , then law will be different.

[zagor]

Not going to happen, and even if it did, it wouldn't stop women from going to the states (which would probably be at least half) that would still allow it. Roe v. Wade just stopped states from banning it, so a reversal wouldn't make it illegal under federal law. New York, California, Washington, etc. are not going to ban abortion. So it would just discriminate against the poor.

And some group would probably raise money to pay for them to travel to another state.

[Poormanscomedian]

@zagor I would arrest all mayors that didn't and Governors

[zagor]

But you're not making the law. And the current president only cares about it as a sop to his political base. A majority of states would not ban it.

[morimeme1]

The problem is that religous people take some God (whichever of them) as everyone's authority while it is not, it is an imagined entity that you choose to believe. Passing laws based on that is just stupid.

[Poormanscomedian]

poor child

[jacquesvol]

@Poormanscomedian no child yet, att the moment of legal abortion in the EU. Just a pea sized lump of cells sithout nerve system.

[morimeme1]

@jacquesvol I'm pretty sure he just meant it as an insult to me as he founds himself incapable of making any valid arguments to support his opinion.

[jacquesvol]

@no insult sttandard answer to people who don't make the difference between zygote, fetus and baby

[jacquesvol]

@morimeme1

[Zorax]

Excellent Take, I agree 100%, and I know that the truth always bothers the right-wing extremists and religious freaks, that's why they are whining all the time ;)

[morimeme1]

Thank you. :)

[Zorax]

You're welcome :)

[JayParris]

So if a woman is living in a man's house and he wants her gone, can he kill her? His house, his choice.

Let's say she doesn't have a job, can't survive on her own, and doesn't have any friends or family, and I want her gone NOW. Can I kill her? I'll make it humane.

[morimeme1]

By law she is a grown capable woman that can make input if she wished to do so, she has feelings, thoughts, emotions and values her own life (and it was your choice to let her in your house, you can kick her out as well, same as abortion but kicking out is different, she doesn't die from it because she isn't actually that dependant on you) therefore recognised as a whole person and is protected from unnecessary murder. You are not forced by the law to take care of her further if you want her gone from your house right? :)

[JayParris]

Actually, I am. And what if I don't consider her a person because she doesn't have the means to support herself? Actually, let's go one step further and say she's disabled: a deaf and blind paraplegic. What then? Isn't she just a parasitic clump of cells at that point?

And it doesn't matter if I invited her to stay or she just invaded my house and refuses to acknowledge my desire for her to leave.

[morimeme1]

It does matter a lot because if you just denounce that it loses any analogy with abortion. Well the law disagrees with you however if we are entirely honest I would not consider her existence worth it but oh well, we live in a time where any natural selection is denounced and I must live accordingly, that is what most people don't understand, those who think that women belong in the kitchen have a hard time adjusting to reality of 21st century, same goes for "pro-life" activists, they can have their opinion but forcing their views on others is just wrong.

[JayParris]

The law says you can't just evict someone without notice.

And you said it all when you said you wouldn't consider her existence worth it.

Now, what if a six-month-old child was too much to deal with. Should it be ok to kill him? He can't survive and function on his own

[morimeme1]

You really are trying to get the wrong person with such questions, I have my own moral compass in which a fetus is not as valuable as a six-month old and where natural selection should not be abolished and people just sitting there in misery and pain waiting to die should have a chance to stop being parasites on others and taking up good space. Every one of us have their own values and morals, there is no universal standard so we just invented the law which dictates how we can efficiently co-exist and be statisfied on an individual level as much as possible. (And my point wasn't about some notice of eviction, but about the society making you house and take care of some stranger forcefully which would be unfair right). (Anyway with a six-month old you made your decision take care of it since you already chose to keep it, it is about there being a choice at all, not having the freedom to change your mind whenever duuuh).

[JayParris]

I'm glad to see some honesty. You're right, it has nothing to do with anything objective. Its your own personal moral compass that you use to assign a value to a person in judging whether they should live or die.

Do you think you were born with this moral code, or is it something that's learned and constantly influenced by the people around you?

[MittenstheGlove]

I’ll answer this. You simply go through the process of eviction. If she wasn’t married to you or anything you pay nothing else. She unlike, a fetus, does have the potential to support herself.

I’ve done this myself.

You can kill her, but that runs the risk of complicate. Just because you can doesn’t inherently mean you should, but that’s an interpersonal decision.

Morales are extremely interpersonal, but laws should be based on both sound logic rooted in science and humanity. Too much of either can be counterproductive.

Human morales exist within themselves so it is probably a latent ability of reason your born with. It is cultivated in time by external stimuli and personal experiences.

[JayParris]

@MittenstheGlove true enough, but the eviction process takes time so that they can get their feet under them. That was my point. You can't just throw them out without notice, and of course it would be wrong to kill them.

You're also right about morals being personal, but the law requires a solid footing in science and logic, tempered by mercy. Basing the law on convenience and emotion is foolish.

That was my exact point. The most basic form of freedom is ownership of your own body, and I agree that if your body is your property, then you are free to choose what happens to it. But just like that house that's my property and my choice, there's someone living in there who deserves a fair chance instead of just being killed because it's more convenient for the property owner.

[MittenstheGlove]

I think this is a bad faith comparison. No one ever is given a fair chance. You can’t just tell a fetus I’m aborting you and that be it.

This is a very unique situation and unfortunately there are no equivalency for this.

I think, though I should thank you for this though provocation. It helps later in real life situations.

[JayParris]

@MittenstheGlove is not a perfect analogy, but I hoped it would spark some thought.

[Alpha09]

Well said! The best mytake on the subject I've read by far.

[TonyMetal_86]

The best take that deserves to kiss my a*s beta girl 🤣

[Alpha09]

TonyMetal_86 somebody's bored in there mom's basement.

[morimeme1]

Wonder what his mom would say if she knew what her son is spouting on the internet.

[Alpha09]

I don't know but he's a waste of the 9 months she carried him. Ungrateful ass.

[TonyMetal_86]

You will be shocked to see how many women around the world might kill you as much as they love the way i am, so no need to mention my mom who see her son as a king...

By the way, people like you whonare shallow and stup*d would live their parents basement like rats and not kings like me😂

[Alpha09]

Can you even spell?

[Alpha09]

I noticed you blocked me from commenting on your posts, looks like I bother you lol

[morimeme1]

Some people just can't take objective criticism and choose to live in their own imaginary bubble of greatness, sad.

[Alpha09]

Sounds about right.

[Poormanscomedian]

You are not hard to impress then

[Poormanscomedian]

You described yourself to a T. Bubble Girl

[jacquesvol]

[Ava01]

They only car bout The the unborn but when there born your on own. Until they reach military age. Also lot of this people don’t do anything about the school shootings.

[morimeme1]

Most of these people don't do ANYTHING except just spout their "opinion" and judge others.

[Ava01]

Exactly

[Goodwifie]

I had a terrible time with my first pregnancy, this is an understatement.
I don't think any woman should be forced to carry a unwanted pregnancy, it should only be done with love involved.

[esotericstory]

If you are pro choice for women you must also be pro choice for men. Men dont even have a right to their own foreskin. Pro choice people dont get a single shred of sympathy from me even though I agree with some forms of abortion.

[morimeme1]

I am pro-choice for men, even though losing your foreskin is nothing in comparisulon to creating a life that you have to care for.

[esotericstory]

No foreskin = no opinion!

[esotericstory]

Educate yourself on the male anatomy please.

Circumcision does tremendous damage to the penis sensitivity.

Brain damage too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USHjRMx9BGQ
Circumcision causes men to self medicate with sex or masturbation which often results in sex addiction.

[morimeme1]

A youtube video of a random girl saying stuff is not really scientific evidence, but as I said, I do not support genital mutilation and do not pretend to have a say in that the way so many men do with abortion.

[esotericstory]

She's specialized in it.

[morimeme1]

Well, I'm happy for her but it has nothing to do with anything here right now, you started getting defensive as if I disagreed with what you said.

[morimeme1]

But let's face it, most people who circumcise their kids are religious males.

[esotericstory]

I am pointing out the hypocrisy of pro choice people, its only for women, they give no platform for the little baby boys who must undergo torture. I gave evidence as to why it is indeed torture.

[esotericstory]

Incorrect, male circumcision in the USA declined when more women because anti-circumcision. Its mostly a choice of the mother.

[esotericstory]

Most circumcisers are jewish women, and jewish doctors who make non-jews do it.

[morimeme1]

Then I can easily point out the hypocrisy of pro-life people because in reality most of them are simply anti-abortion as they do not give two shits after the child is born and often say that a woman should just go and die as well if she is so "heartless" as to kill a "baby". While the pseudo hypocrisy of pro-choice that you tried to use as an argument is a completely separate thing.

[esotericstory]

I am not prolife as I already said.

[esotericstory]

If you are pro choice you must be pro choice all the way, otherwise you are just pro-abortion.

[buttcrackjoe]

Murder happens every day. Whats one more to add to the pot? I say go for it.

[BasicGirl]

I agree with this but an argument for prolife would be that it’s not controlling women’s bodies, it’s telling doctors that they can’t do something

[morimeme1]

Well, not exactly, doctors can't do a lot of things but offering this procedure is just a medium through which women get to do it safely. In case of Georgia and Alabama womes will face severe consequences for attempting to induce miscarriage themselves or even leaving the state to get an abortion elsewhere.

[Deathraider]

Also philosophically, what makes a person a Person?

[morimeme1]

That is a very old question that many philosophers have tackled, often the conclusion they come to are along the lines of: a being capable of evaluating his/her own life; a being that is capable of inducing compassion in others; a being who is capable of convincing others he/she has value. But obviously all of them have their own exceptions and indescrepancies so it only leaves us with personal subjective opinion which in this debate greatly varies from person to person.

[blythely]

No one is a person. Kill whomever you please.

[morimeme1]

Just the law is against it, that is the only thing in our way :)

[Deathraider]

Anarchy is the new law established!!!

🔪”Now give me your wallet!”

[Pineapple_Boy]

#5 is total BS and the stupidest justification/ argument for abortion even tho I'm in support of abortion.

[morimeme1]

I do not see a problem there, I realise that the strenght of the argument will be evaluated by different people differently and you have a right to have an opinion of course.

[HereIbe]

Let's just make infanticide legal up to the second year after birth.

[morimeme1]

You know, considering all the bs that you have been writing on this site it is really hard to tell when you are being sarcastic.

[HereIbe]

No, really! Let's call it a social experiment and see how things change.

[morimeme1]

It has been a practice in several past cultures tho, nowadays we have just disregarded any form of natural selection.

[HereIbe]

Infanticide doesn't count as natural selection. It's as artificial as can be.

[jacquesvol]

@merelbe Nobody proposes that. It's a hoax

[HereIbe]

@jacquesvol, you're a little stupid, aren't you? Look up "sarcasm".

[jacquesvol]

It was a philosophy exercise given by an Australian psychology teacher to his pupils. It's spread all over the net.

[HereIbe]

@jacquesvol, I don't give a fuck about some tenth-rate "teacher" I've never heard of. In my case, I was being sarcastic and snarky.

[jacquesvol]

THat tenth-rate "teacher" probably has his own opinions

[jacquesvol]

Running over it with your car seems OK. Leaving a loaded gun where it can play with it too.
www.usnews.com/.../parents-of-toddler-who-killed-himself-with-found-gun-charged

[jacquesvol]

www.splcenter.org/.../biggest-lie-white-supremacist-propaganda-playbook-unraveling-truth-about-%E2%80%98black-white-crime