Pro-Choice and Pro-Life Psychology

I've spent some years studying the abortion issue out in the real world.

I've learned that the pro-choice and pro-life perspectives are positions on a spectrum, the most extreme being at the wings, the less compulsive more moderate, and the great majority at the center being truly neither pro-choice or pro-life and wishing there was less of a two-evils perspective in power to decide upon.

Indeed, most people know that a human begins to live a conception, that killing humans at any stage is generally unethical and situationally morally wrong, but they also know that abortion is sometimes necessary, something to be tolerated though not embraced. Thus the great majority at the center reflects the psychologically healthy good life-skill ability to live within a paradoxical situation and not be overwhelmed by it to extremes, advocating a sensible solution of improving methods of preventing unwanted/undesired conceptions/pregnancies from occurring.

This, however, cannot be said of either the pro-choice or pro-life wings. Both of these factions reflect, in my opinion, an unhealthy psychology about abortion-related matters that compels them to resort to a number of defense mechanisms to cope with difficult realities and maintain their self-image.

This link presents the four levels of defense mechanisms: Defence mechanism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Each of the two wing factions reflects defense mechanisms as follows:

Pro-Choice

Pro-choicers deny the biological organism reality that a human begins to live at conception. Despite the hard-science consensus of taxonomy, phylogeny, anthropology, biology, genetics-DNA, and organism-life sciences that's existed for over 35 years, pro-choicers present as if they are in denial about this scientific reality. Pro-choicers also deny other realities specific to abortion like the abortifacient nature of birth-control pills containing progestin, the adverse psychological-physiological side-effects always associated to some degree with abortion due to the reality of what abortion specifically is, and their advocating of abortion on demand can and has caused harm to women, the very people they idealize to support. They'll even deny they truly suffer defense mechanisms, fearing the revealed reality of it will cost them their ability to persuade others to their cause. Denial is a pathological-level defense mechanism characterized by refusal to accept external reality because it is too threatening; arguing against an anxiety-provoking stimulus by saying it doesn’t exist.

Pro-choicers distort the biological organism reality of a living human prenatal, misrepresenting via distortion that it's a mere clump of cells that isn’t human or alive, a blob, a fertilized egg no different from any other body-part/cell, not really alive unless it [has a heartbeat, a fully-functional brain, is viable, is born], etc. Distortion is a pathological-level defense mechanism characterized by a gross reshaping of external reality to meet internal needs, in this case, so that pro-choicers don’t have to face the reality that they freely support a procedure that kills humans at the early stages of their life.

Pro-choicers delusionally project that pro-lifers hate women and that their objection to abortion is a disguised misogynistic intent to do women harm. Delusional projection is a pathological-level defense mechanism characterized by such grossly frank delusions of external reality, usually of a persecutory nature.

Pro-choicer delusional projection can reflect splitting, where the pro-choicer sees the pro-lifer as innately evil, or where the pro-choicer sees anyone who isn’t a pro-choicer like them as being a pro-lifer and evil. Such splitting is a pathological-level defense mechanism where negative and positive impulses are split off and unintegrated. Those who have experienced/witnessed significant abuse are more prone to splitting.

Pro-choicers, especially in heated street-corner actions, project their own “negative” thoughts, feelings and impulses onto pro-lifers, calling pro-lifers names and altering their label to demean (“anti-choice”, “anti-woman”), accusing pro-lifers of distortions about the biological nature of prenatals, accusing pro-lifers of presenting delusionally, waxing irrational, etc. Projection is an immature level defense mechanism that is a primitive form of paranoia, characterized by an attempt to reduce one’s own anxiety about one’s own unacknowledged/unacceptable/unwanted thought-types and emotional states onto another.

Pro-choicers in relating with pro-lifers can displace onto pro-lifers in transference their aggressive impulses toward people of their personal past who they believe were harmful to the pro-choicer but unsafe to directly address, so the emotion towards that person gets displaced onto pro-lifers, falsely accusing pro-lifers of traits like misogyny, abusiveness, controlling, etc. that belong to the person in the pro-choicer’s past. This displacement is a neurotic-level defense mechanism characterized by the separation of emotion from the real object and redirecting it to someone less offensive or threatening in order to avoid dealing directly with what is more or too frightening or threatening.

Pro-choicers tend to intellectualize about what abortion is, abortion reasons, the associated terms, and to a digressive degree, often with appeal to science albeit with inaccurate/irrelevant reference, to avoid facing the emotionally difficult truth that abortion is the killing of a living human and has adverse psychological/physiological side-effects on the woman. Intellectualizing, a form of isolation, is a neurotic-level defense mechanism characterized by concentrating on the intellectual components of a situation so as to distance oneself from the associated anxiety-provoking emotions. The highly educated/academicians are more prone to this.

Pro-choicers tend to rationalize justification for abortion as “okay” with faulty appeal to irrelevant unsound reasoning like impoverished/unwanted children become criminals, careers are ruined if abortion doesn’t occur, a woman’s normal immune system reaction “means” pregnancy shouldn’t occur or is “unnatural”, pregnancy could become very challenging, something specifically unpredictably bad might [unlikely] occur during pregnancy, it’s too hard on single mothers to be parents, men who want their partner to abort won’t pay child support, etc. Rationalizing (making excuses) is a neurotic-level defense mechanism characterized by convincing oneself that no wrong was done or that all is or was all right through faulty and false reasoning, often exemplified by the formation of convenient excuses.

These are just some of the pro-choice defense mechanisms.

Pro-Life

Pro-lifers deny realities specific to abortion, such as the adverse psychological/physiological side-effects of rape and incest and carrying a prenatal so-caused to term, some women’s medical conditions predispose them to life-threatening pregnancies, birth-control pills that contain progestin function as abortifacients and that they use/recommend these pills themselves, even that they’ve acquiesced to being party to an abortion in their past. They will even deny that they truly suffer defense mechanisms, fearing the revealed reality of it will cost them their ability to persuade others to their cause. Denial is a pathological-level defense mechanism (see associated pro-choice section for more information; I ran out of single-post space).

Pro-lifers distort the growth-stage-termed realities of humans, falsely stating that a prenatal human is a baby or a child. Despite the hard-science consensus of anthropology, biology, medicine and pediatric sciences that's existed for centuries, pro-lifers present distortions about this scientific reality. Pro-lifers also distort philosophically/sociologically, falsely claiming that a prenatal is a human being in every sense, including philosophically/sociologically, when only the biological perspective could apply. Pro-lifers also distort similarly that a “person” begins to live at conception when that is debatably something that simply cannot be known, or that God told them that was true when it was simply their own (group) idea. Distortion is a pathological-level defense mechanism characterized by a gross reshaping of external reality to meet internal needs, in this case, so that pro-lifers don’t have to face the reality that abortion isn’t a pro-choicer holocaust conspiracy they say it is and that the “aborted baby” is the stand-in for a degree of their own aborted childhood.

Pro-lifers delusionally project that pro-choicers hate babies, children and the unborn and that their support of abortion is a “disguised” holocaust intent to reduce population. Pro-lifers can also delude that God hates all abortion and has “commanded” them to bomb abortion clinics. Delusional projection is a pathological-level defense mechanism.

Pro-lifer delusional projection can reflect splitting, where the pro-lifer sees the pro-choicer as innately evil, or where the pro-lifer sees anyone who isn’t a pro-lifer like them as being a pro-choicer and evil. Such splitting is a pathological-level defense mechanism. Those who have experienced significant abuse or witnessed it closely, especially those pro-lifers who’ve compensated via fundamentalist religion, are more prone to splitting.

Pro-lifers can act out justice for their own earlier abuse that “killed” their own inner-child via strong emotional displays at demonstrations on behalf of “butchered babies” and preventing “the murder of innocents”. Acting out is an immature-level defense mechanism characterized by direct expression of an unconscious wish or impulse in action, without conscious awareness of the emotion/cause that drives the expressive behavior.

Pro-lifers, especially in heated street-corner demos, project their own “negative” thoughts, feelings and impulses onto pro-choicers, calling pro-choicers names and altering their label to demean (“anti-life”, “pro-death”), accusing pro-choicers of distorting reality about the growth-stage nature of a prenatal, accusing pro-choicers of presenting delusionally, waxing irrational, etc. Projection is an immature level defense mechanism.

Pro-lifers in relating with pro-choicers can displace onto pro-choicers in transference their aggressive impulses toward people of their personal past who they believe were harmful to the pro-lifer but unsafe to directly address, so the emotion towards that person gets displaced onto pro-choicers, falsely accusing pro-choicers of traits like child-haters, baby-murderers, life-killers, etc., metaphoric translations of such that belong to the person in the pro-lifers’s past who harmed the pro-lifer’s “child”-hood. This displacement is a neurotic-level defense mechanism.

Pro-lifers tend to rationalize justification for opposing abortion with faulty appeal to irrelevant unsound reasoning like pregnancy is never really life-threatening, pregnancy that's not rape or incest is God’s will, even if it’s rape or incest the child will be a blessing unto the world, etc. Rationalizing (making excuses) is a neurotic-level defense mechanism.

Pro-lifers can sometimes identify with other slain innocents, such as Jesus Christ, both to solidify their inner-child link to having been “crucified like an innocent lamb” in their past when they were essentially “unborn” adults, identifying with “martyred unborn babies”, and to justify their “sacred” efforts to prevent “baby killing” as being “good”. Identification is categorized as a mature-level defense mechanism characterized by the unconscious modeling of one’s self upon another person’s character and behavior.

These are just some of the pro-life defense mechanisms.

Summary

The challenge for wing pro-choicers and pro-lifers is to step out of their unhealthy paradigm and move toward the healthy center of the abortion spectrum. This sometimes requires therapy.

The challenge for the great majority at the center of the abortion spectrum is to avoid getting caught up in either wing extreme of pro-choice or pro-life and to be aware of the precursors in their own past, especially if unresolved, that might predispose them to being sucked into either extreme.

The challenge for us all is to promote sensible ways to make abortion safe, legal, and rare.

Since it's already legal and safe, the only objective that hasn't been met is for it to be rare. This won't happen anytime soon, because the vast majority of people really don't want to be cognizant of the possible ramifications of sexual activity in any serious manner, and are not psychologically capable of controlling their impulses consistently, or making sure that unwanted pregnancy won't occur. We don't collectively tend to look forward and prevent unwanted consequences, but prefer to experience first, then plan later, as we see the results of our actions. It's just a human thing.

Ontologuy said:

IIndeed, most people know that a human begins to live a conception, that killing humans at any stage is generally unethical and situationally [sic] morally wrong, but they also know that abortion is sometimes necessary, something to be tolerated though not embraced.

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Pro-Life

Pro-lifers deny realities specific to abortion, such as the adverse psychological/physiological side-effects of rape and incest and carrying a prenatal so-caused to term, some women’s medical conditions predispose them to life-threatening pregnancies, birth-control pills that contain progestin function as abortifacients and that they use/recommend these pills themselves, even that they’ve acquiesced to being party to an abortion in their past. They will even deny that they truly suffer defense mechanisms, fearing the revealed reality of it will cost them their ability to persuade others to their cause. Denial is a pathological-level defense mechanism (see associated pro-choice section for more information; I ran out of single-post space).

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I don't think that most on the “pro-life” side deny, as you claim, the adverse effects of an unwanted pregnancy.

As you, yourself, acknowledge, “…a human begins to live a conception, that killing humans at any stage is generally unethical and situationally [sic] morally wrong…”. While I think nearly everyone agrees that there are certain circumstances under which it is acceptable to kill a human being, nearly everyone also agrees (except where abortion is concerned) that such killing is only acceptable under extreme circumstances.

In nearly every case, abortion takes place under circumstances that are not nearly as drastic or extreme as any other circumstances that anyone would agree were sufficient to justify the killing of a human being.

I do not deny the adverse effects that an unwanted pregnancy can bring. I deny that they are sufficient to justify the killing of an innocent human being, in order to avoid them.

lizzie said:

Since it's already legal and safe…

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It's not safe. Every successful abortion results in the death of an innocent human being. By definition, this is not safe.

Bob Blaylock said:

It's not safe. Every successful abortion results in the death of an innocent human being. By definition, this is not safe.

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From the standpoint of the baby, no doubt. It's not safe at all.

You can divide up the pie to it's moral slices all you want . . . but we (my husband and I) hold the ultimate right to decide if we're going to have the 4 children we have now - or a 5th if nature finds a way to happen even with our efforts to halt it.

People can think it's immoral, unethical, dilusional, dishonest or deceitful - etc etc - All they want. Doesn't matter. I just think it's decent parenting and a dose of common sense to decide when you have enough children, your family is big enough, and that you're not going to have more children.

Aunt Spiker said:

You can divide up the pie to it's moral slices all you want . . . but we (my husband and I) hold the ultimate right to decide if we're going to have the 4 children we have now - or a 5th if nature finds a way to happen even with our efforts to halt it.

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So what happens when you and your husband decide that you don't want all of the four children that you have now?

Ontologuy said:

I've spent some years studying the abortion issue out in the real world....

.....The challenge for wing pro-choicers and pro-lifers is to step out of their unhealthy paradigm and move toward the healthy center of the abortion spectrum. This sometimes requires therapy.

The challenge for the great majority at the center of the abortion spectrum is to avoid getting caught up in either wing extreme of pro-choice or pro-life and to be aware of the precursors in their own past, especially if unresolved, that might predispose them to being sucked into either extreme.

The challenge for us all is to promote sensible ways to make abortion safe, legal, and rare.

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This is probably one of the best posts I've seen here on DP. Well done. You've made a sound psychological argument. I agree with your final conclusion too. I am wondering though... if therapy is the only way to realize the "grayness" of the situation... we are looking at a very large bill and of course... lots of business for the mental health field. So, what is your proposal insofar as reaching the masses is concerned? Many many people think in black and white and are uncomfortable thinking in the grey areas. How can this be changed?

Additionally, considering your experience in this area, what are your thoughts on the father's rights to choice or lack of choice surrounding his child?

I am pro choice. I don't deny that the organism is biologically human and is alive. It is "human life" in that sense. If we define " human life" as biologically human and alive, then quite simply I don't value all human life, only some human life. I value only human life that has reached the status of personhood. Actually, I would value any biological life form which had reached personhood, human life or not. In fact, I would value self aware life forms, like many Dolphins, over many human lives which have not yet reached personhood, like human fetuses. Quite literally, if I was faced with the choice of saving an elephant, for example, or saving a fetus, and I couldn't save both, I would without question save the elephant.

Pro choice people do not deny the biology. We simply deny the value of certain human life forms. Specifically those which have not reached a certain level of development.

Ontologuy said:

Indeed, most people know that a human begins to live a conception [...]

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It's unfortunate to see so much intellectual effort being spent for the promotion, support and advocacy of nonsense.

An individual should have the freedom to assign as much value to their body as they choose. If their choice is considered wrong, we can then implement social processes to educate people before they make a decision that most other society members may find abhorrent.

An individual should *not* be allowed to impose their own subjective beliefs on the lives of others. That's the current common rejection of accepting so many anti-social attitudes that were so popular in societies in societies, mainly because of religion.

The best case scenario here is to allow people to do what they want to do - consider an abortion as abhorrent so don't have it for themselves, or consider an abortion as a physical or biological process that human beings should be allowed to have if they choose to have it.

There's no need for unending self-absorbed egocentric meaningless nonsense.

Dezaad said:

Pro choice people do not deny the biology. We simply deny the value of certain human life forms. Specifically those which have not reached a certain level of development.

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In this sense, you are not any different, or any better, than other groups throughout history, who have valued some human beings below others, even to the point of denying their personhood and their basic human rights.

Here in the United States, in the early days of our country, that is how we treated Negros, and that is how we treated American Indians.

In Germany, during the 1930s and 1940s, that is how Jews, Gypsies, the mentally ill, and other “undesirables” were treated.

In the Balkans, in the 1990s, this sort of treatment was the basis for “ethnic cleansing”.

Let the “Pro-Choice” movement—and those who adhere thereto—be known by the company that they keep.

Paralogic said:

It's unfortunate to see so much intellectual effort being spent for the promotion, support and advocacy of nonsense.

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Actually, what was said does seem to be quite accurate - I have studied this issue as well and I have life experience and a high level of schooling in psychology

Paralogic said:

An individual should have the freedom to assign as much value to their body as they choose.

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This is true in my opinion - people should have psychological freedom so long as it is not unhealthy and even then, it is up to them whether or not they want to "fox" that unhealthiness

Paralogic said:

If their choice is considered wrong, we can then implement social processes to educate people before they make a decision that most other society members may find abhorrent.

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if there choice is "wrong".. ? ? .. are you saying that "wrong" choices exist in this area? I'm not sure I am following you here ... please give an example of a wrong choice

Paralogic said:

An individual should *not* be allowed to impose their own subjective beliefs on the lives of others. That's the current common rejection of accepting so many anti-social attitudes that were so popular in societies in societies, mainly because of religion.

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I agree

Paralogic said:

The best case scenario here is to allow people to do what they want to do - consider an abortion as abhorrent so don't have it for themselves, or consider an abortion as a physical or biological process that human beings should be allowed to have if they choose to have it.

There's no need for unending self-absorbed egocentric meaningless nonsense.

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I believe you are right about allowing people's choices....

But I think you missed the point... the problem is that there is so much political conflict that results from such black and white thinking. This would be resolved if people we more able to think in the grey areas. If there were less political attention given to this issue and it were to simply be resolved, those clinging to the abortion arguments could find a an issue with a higher priority level to argue. Of course this doesn't seem likely and the solution to the problem seems almost hopeless (as I mentioned in an earlier post).

MusicAdventurer said:

I believe you are right about allowing people's choices...

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I'm right about everything I say.

Individuals should be allowed to choose a no-abortion for their bodies because they believe they carry a viable human being in their bodies.

Individuals should *NOT* be allowed to impose their own choice to everyone else in society.

Anything else that that, is not democracy, it's a dictatorship.

Secular philosophy has proven that social dictatorships are detrimental to society.

Bob Blaylock said:

In this sense, you are not any different, or any better, than other groups throughout history, who have valued some human beings below others, even to the point of denying their personhood and their basic human rights.

Here in the United States, in the early days of our country, that is how we treated Negros, and that is how we treated American Indians.

In Germany, during the 1930s and 1940s, that is how Jews, Gypsies, the mentally ill, and other “undesirables” were treated.

In the Balkans, in the 1990s, this sort of treatment was the basis for “ethnic cleansing”.

Let the “Pro-Choice” movement—and those who adhere thereto—be known by the company that they keep.

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I/we may or may not be different from those other groups. Just as some Christians may or may not be different from their fellow Christians who commit atrocities, with whom they share rationales, but not conclusions. Shall we judge all Christians by the "company they keep"?

It may or may not be rational to hold specific human life forms as being of relatively low value. If it is the case, you would simply conclude some have applied it correctly, while others are in error.

I value personhood because I value my own human experience. When "I" was in the womb, I was not a person, and was not capable of experience in the sense that persons are capable of. We don't value being alive in the sense that amoebas are alive. We value being alive in the sense that there is an experiencer experiencing being alive. Fetuses are not biologically capable of being an experiencer anywhere near the caliber of myself. They are much closer to experiencing life on the level an amoeba does, than the way you or I do. I simply don't value the experience of life forms which are capable of such a low level of experience.

Genocidal maniacs erroneously conclude that actual persons are not capable of the high caliber experience of life, and on no basis whatsoever. Pro choice people have biology backing them up. The two groups are different.

I value the lives of actual persons so much that there is no question that there lives should in no way be disrupted for the sake of non- persons. In this way, pro-choice recognizes the value of the lives of people in the sense that we mean when we say "this is my life", which is the only important sense. Pro-Life positions devalue "human lives" for the sake of "human life", and that is an egregious shame.

While the OP does make a couple good points against both sides, I have to say I felt most of it was a well articulated straw man regarding both points of view. Or at least a straw man against the rational pro-choicers and rational pro-lifers.

I don't want it to be safe or legal, just rare.

Sure, contract killing will always exist on the black market, but that is where something that vile belongs, and efforts to make it rare should center on law enforcement.
Human trafficking still goes on around the globe, but you don't see anyone calling for bringing back legal slavery (or saying "Don't like slavery, don't buy one").

Anyway.

Ontologuy said:

Pro-Life

Pro-lifers deny realities specific to abortion, such as the adverse psychological/physiological side-effects of rape and incest and carrying a prenatal so-caused to term, some women’s medical conditions predispose them to life-threatening pregnancies, birth-control pills that contain progestin function as abortifacients and that they use/recommend these pills themselves...

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Respectively:

* I don't think I've ever heard anyone deny that rape sucks, though I've certainly heard many express the rhetorical equivalent of "two wrongs don't make a right."
* Sure, pregnancy is a risk for some women; our contention is that these risks are grossly exaggerated by the pro-abortion camp, and statistics bear that out.
* Birth control pills are known to function by preventing ovulation; the notion that they prevent implantation remains speculative, and I've seen animal model studies that suggest no statistical difference in implantation rates. I'm not convinced, and that's not denial - that's rational skepticism requiring actual supporting evidence to back a claim.

Pro-lifers distort the growth-stage-termed realities of humans, falsely stating that a prenatal human is a baby or a child. Despite the hard-science consensus of anthropology, biology, medicine and pediatric sciences that's existed for centuries, pro-lifers present distortions about this scientific reality. Pro-lifers also distort philosophically/sociologically, falsely claiming that a prenatal is a human being in every sense, including philosophically/sociologically, when only the biological perspective could apply. Pro-lifers also distort similarly that a “person” begins to live at conception when that is debatably something that simply cannot be known, or that God told them that was true when it was simply their own (group) idea.

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I understand the stages of life, and so do most anti-abortion folks. The problem is one of terms and understanding the limitations of the words you're using; child and baby are both used broadly in vernacular / layman definitions that include a longer period than their technical, medical / biological definitions.

"Human being" means nothing more than "a living member of the species Homo sapiens." "Person" means nothing more than what current law says it does.

Pro-lifers delusionally project that pro-choicers hate babies, children and the unborn and that their support of abortion is a “disguised” holocaust intent to reduce population.

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Gonna stop you on this one, chief.

On population and intent, analyze the current crop of pro-abortion debaters on this subforum and check out just how many will give you "the world is overcrowded" or "too many children to take care of now" answer. Neomalthusian environmentalists are quite common, and they'll use their beliefs to try and justify abortion through utilitarianism - population control.

If you pay attention to what people actually say, you'll find this one to be no delusion.

As far as actually hating "babies, children, and the unborn", well, I've seen enough condemn adoption, both in general and as an alternative, to wonder if that may not apply to some of their lot. These folks are rare enough that by no means can you project their opinions onto the rest of the group.

Pro-lifer delusional projection can reflect splitting, where the pro-lifer sees the pro-choicer as innately evil, or where the pro-lifer sees anyone who isn’t a pro-lifer like them as being a pro-choicer and evil.

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Pro-abortion folks aren't evil. I've noticed they're typically quite ignorant of basic science; their ignorance makes them vulnerable to convenient suggestions and emotional appeals that conform to their biases. Easy to manipulate with disinformation from the abortion lobby... disinformation they readily regurgitate.

Abortionists and their clients, of course, are as evil as anyone else serving a murder sentence, they're just currently outside the reach of the law.

Bob Blaylock said:

In this sense, you are not any different, or any better, than other groups throughout history, who have valued some human beings below others, even to the point of denying their personhood and their basic human rights.

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It is still happening. Your death penalty is very clearly a value of some human beings below others, as is allowing people to kill in defence of themselves or property.

Note: this is not a comment on whether any of the above is right or wrong.

lizzie said:

Since it's already legal and safe, the only objective that hasn't been met is for it to be rare. This won't happen anytime soon, because the vast majority of people really don't want to be cognizant of the possible ramifications of sexual activity in any serious manner, and are not psychologically capable of controlling their impulses consistently, or making sure that unwanted pregnancy won't occur. We don't collectively tend to look forward and prevent unwanted consequences, but prefer to experience first, then plan later, as we see the results of our actions. It's just a human thing.

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The sex drive is indeed incredibly strong, and it can really subdue in many their cognitive efforts to prevent pregnancy.

The neat thing about the next gen. of conception prevention pills currently in both FDA testing and development is that, not only are they safe, effective, and convenient, but that men can take them, too.

Couple this with humanity's trending increase in intelligence/awareness about what sex can truly create, and single-men's continued aversion to child support payments, I like to believe that there is hope.

Indeed, I've read a number of links here in forum that have shown abortion rates to be dropping, and though I can't remember if that also included the counts themselves, it's hopefully further evidence we're headed in the right direction.

As for "rare", yes, I'm aware that we've a ways to go, but not impossible.

There are those people, categorically a good 40%, who are the artisan/hedonists of the planet, more prone to pleasure first and utilitarian reactions second. They will need the most help, pharmaceutically, which the next gen. pills will provide. Couple that with getting the whole truth out there as to what pregnancy truly is and what abortion truly is and the lingering adverse side-effects post-abortion, since this 40% really doesn't like adverse anything, I'm pretty sure they can be persuaded to join in the conception-prevention cause for the preservation of their own sacred pleasure.

I mean, one implant, good for a year or so, or a simple pill/day taken with daily vitamins in the morning is really pretty easy. And with both men and women so armed so easily with protection against conception, failure rate will drop to nearly zero.

The biggest challenge will be to make these pills affordable for all. That's where real effort will be required.

Ontologuy said:

Pro-choicers deny the biological organism reality that a human begins to live at conception.

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In about 17 years of debating abortion online, first on Fidonet then on the Internet, I have never, EVER seen a pro-choicer say that the unborn is not biologically human. That is hugely different from the term "a human" which is synonymous (sp?) with "human being" and "person". I have, however, on many occasions, seen pro-lifers use the terms "human" and "a human (being)" interchangeably, presumably as a tactic to obfuscate.

Pro-choicers also deny other realities specific to abortion like the abortifacient nature of birth-control pills containing progestin,

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To be "abortifacient", it has to cause abortion. To cause abortion, the woman has to be pregnant, since abortion is termination of a pregnancy. To be pregnant, the zygote has to have implanted. Therefore, BC pills are *not* abortifacient, even if they do cause a fertilised egg to fail to implant.

Pro-choicers distort the biological organism reality of a living human prenatal, misrepresenting via distortion that it's a mere clump of cells that isn’t human or alive, a blob, a fertilized egg no different from any other body-part/cell, not really alive unless it [has a heartbeat, a fully-functional brain, is viable, is born], etc.

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*Some* may do this, but not the majority.

Pro-choicers delusionally project that pro-lifers hate women and that their objection to abortion is a disguised misogynistic intent to do women harm.

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Once again, *some* pro-choicers may feel this way but not the majority.

Pro-choicers, especially in heated street-corner actions, project their own “negative” thoughts, feelings and impulses onto pro-lifers, calling pro-lifers names and altering their label to demean (“anti-choice”, “anti-woman”),

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I find it interesting ....and perhaps a bit telling ..... that you bring up *these* labels, but in your diatribe about pro-lifers you did not bring up the fact that some of them use the terms "pro-abortion", "pro-death" etc.

Pro-choicers tend to rationalize justification for abortion as “okay” with faulty appeal to irrelevant unsound reasoning like impoverished/unwanted children become criminals, careers are ruined if abortion doesn’t occur, a woman’s normal immune system reaction “means” pregnancy shouldn’t occur or is “unnatural”, pregnancy could become very challenging, something specifically unpredictably bad might [unlikely] occur during pregnancy, it’s too hard on single mothers to be parents, men who want their partner to abort won’t pay child support, etc. Rationalizing (making excuses) is a neurotic-level defense mechanism characterized by convincing oneself that no wrong was done or that all is or was all right through faulty and false reasoning, often exemplified by the formation of convenient excuses.

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Yet again, *some* pro-choicers, not all. As to the point about pregnancy becoming "challenging", it IS a FACT that every pregnancy has the potential to kill the woman, and pregnancy IS hard on her body, with a lot of potential risks. It is typical of many pro-lifers to downplay this risk.

I think the pro-choice/pro-life dichotomy can be explained much more simply:

Fact–value distinction

Pro-choicers look at people as factual objects.

Pro-lifers look at people as valuable subjects.

The problem pro-choicers have is they don't care about burden of proof, and they enjoy preying on the anxieties of pro-lifers. They have to because pro-choice policy accommodates aggressive emotions. Pro-life policy, in contrast, acknowledges that everyone doesn't have the same emotions.

MusicAdventurer said:

This is probably one of the best posts I've seen here on DP. Well done. You've made a sound psychological argument. I agree with your final conclusion too. I am wondering though... if therapy is the only way to realize the "grayness" of the situation... we are looking at a very large bill and of course... lots of business for the mental health field. So, what is your proposal insofar as reaching the masses is concerned? Many many people think in black and white and are uncomfortable thinking in the grey areas. How can this be changed?

Additionally, considering your experience in this area, what are your thoughts on the father's rights to choice or lack of choice surrounding his child?

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Therapy may be required for some to transcend their unhealthy paradigm, but not all. I don't know what that percentage breakdown would be. Getting the OP facts out there where people can read them and say, "Oh my God -- that's me!", like people at their first 12-step AA, CoDA, ACA, Al-Anon, etc. meetings realize after reading "the characteristics" of the particular malady at the meeting, that's always motivationally a major first step to recovery.

Getting the information out there is huge .. and since the search engines pick up this and other discussion sites, the OP will function as another hit on a Google-search.

At that point, we simply need to let go and accept that each person's foundation, their IQ, EQ, childhood history, etc., is what it is. The book "I Hate You, Don't Leave Me" helped bring awareness of borderline personality disorder to the layman, but it didn't cure the disoder. I find it of value not to expect any particular rate of recovery from any particular method/presentation in this arena in the short run.

In the long run, it's simply good to get the truth out and let things take their likely course in time.

Aunt Spiker said:

You can divide up the pie to it's moral slices all you want . . . but we (my husband and I) hold the ultimate right to decide if we're going to have the 4 children we have now - or a 5th if nature finds a way to happen even with our efforts to halt it.

People can think it's immoral, unethical, dilusional, dishonest or deceitful - etc etc - All they want. Doesn't matter. I just think it's decent parenting and a dose of common sense to decide when you have enough children, your family is big enough, and that you're not going to have more children.

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Roe v. Wade, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, all these relevant laws guarantee individual family planning choice up to viability. Though both wings have complained about these decisions, pro-choicers that they should allow abortion on demand up until birth and pro-lifers that viability should be changed to conception now rather than wait for medical science to perhaps one day change that for us, there is a lot of genius in these laws in so many ways, and they are worth our support at this time in our multi-faceted evolution.

But, that's not the topic of this thread.

Those who want to digress too much from the topic may feel uncomfortable with the described realities in the OP

Dezaad said:

I am pro choice. I don't deny that the organism is biologically human and is alive. It is "human life" in that sense. If we define " human life" as biologically human and alive, then quite simply I don't value all human life, only some human life. I value only human life that has reached the status of personhood. Actually, I would value any biological life form which had reached personhood, human life or not. In fact, I would value self aware life forms, like many Dolphins, over many human lives which have not yet reached personhood, like human fetuses. Quite literally, if I was faced with the choice of saving an elephant, for example, or saving a fetus, and I couldn't save both, I would without question save the elephant.

Pro choice people do not deny the biology. We simply deny the value of certain human life forms. Specifically those which have not reached a certain level of development.

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The term "human life" is often used by wing pro-choicers to refer to a human blood cell, a human skin cell, a human sperm, a human egg, and a human prenatal from conception on, as if they were all apples instead of a mix of apples and oranges they truly are, thereby exhibiting the defense mechanism of distortion.

Though some pro-choicers will say, "Yes, a human begins to live at conception, and is alive as an organism just as an adult human is alive", but those are mostly moderates.

Wingers will be hard pressed to make and stick with that statement eschewing the purposely nebulous "human life" term in discussion, prefering instead to at best touch upon the true statement and then revert quickly to their self-deceptive "human life" obfuscation, as part and parcel of wing pro-choicer denial.

Paralogic said:

It's unfortunate to see so much intellectual effort being spent for the promotion, support and advocacy of nonsense.

An individual should have the freedom to assign as much value to their body as they choose. If their choice is considered wrong, we can then implement social processes to educate people before they make a decision that most other society members may find abhorrent.

An individual should *not* be allowed to impose their own subjective beliefs on the lives of others. That's the current common rejection of accepting so many anti-social attitudes that were so popular in societies in societies, mainly because of religion.

The best case scenario here is to allow people to do what they want to do - consider an abortion as abhorrent so don't have it for themselves, or consider an abortion as a physical or biological process that human beings should be allowed to have if they choose to have it.

There's no need for unending self-absorbed egocentric meaningless nonsense.

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You appear to feel threatened by the material in the OP, as your demeaning of the OP realities and digression toward topically irrelevant societal procedure under law may indicate. It is not surprising that both wings will resort to avoidance of the OP realities to a degree.

Your utilitarian-esque statement about allowing "people to do what they want to do" reflects a lack of understanding of what society is, the influence society has on law, and that the laws apply to all, not whoever wants to abide by them. That's why, with regard to murder, people are simply not allowed "to do what they want to do", and after viability, abortion for non-special circumstances can be prevented by the state.

Society reflects reasonable and customary majority perspective with regard to values, and these values become law.

That's civilization in a democratic republic.

There is a tendency in a civilized society to protect the lives of others, and it's understandable and acceptable that such protection makes its way into law over time.

Sarcogito said:

While the OP does make a couple good points against both sides, I have to say I felt most of it was a well articulated straw man regarding both points of view. Or at least a straw man against the rational pro-choicers and rational pro-lifers.

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As I specified in the OP, the defense mechanism presentation is reflective of the wing extremities of each, and I was careful to make sure the post was accurate.

As I also specified, those more moderate, what you might be referring to as "rational", are, yes, less compulsively driven to/in defense mechanisms.

In the DSM IV, as with most lists of criteria, not all of the characteristics have to be present to consider the general description applicable. In this case, I wonder how few people there are that suffer every one of each set of defense mechanism characteristics, likely those on the very edges of the spectrum.

But those on the wings of both sides would likely check off at least half, and it's not just about quantity, but about the intensity and strength of each defense mechanism as well.