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Seeking Clean Discussion and to Understand Pro-Choice Stance

JeenLeen said:
Please keep in mind I’m not saying what should be law (though it’s tied to law, certainly, and recent laws is what got me wanting to start this conversation). I’m trying to understand pro-choice stances and responses to pro-life stances.

So, I think in that situation I should give my kidney.
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"Should you" is not the question being debated. The question being debated is "legally required to."

So I'm going to ask again: Should you be legally required to give up your kidney without any say in the matter?

I also think there’s some weakness in the analogy in that a pregnant woman is already providing life. To stop provision of life is more active than choosing not to give life.
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I could have just as easily made the analogy one about your being connected to another person via IV for nine months, and if you cut the connection during that time, the other person would die. You'd no longer be "providing life." So your objection doesn't hold water.

@ analogy of something breaking into one’s house/eviction I think part of it is that a fetus didn’t choose to do so, so it’s not really an equivalent metaphor. If I shoot someone for entering my house, either as a robber or just some drunk guy who stumbled in the wrong door but I perceive him as a threat, that seems fair. If I shoot my someone who I know didn’t come there on purpose (say an elderly neighbor with dementia who wonders in but insists its their house—bad analogy but I’m grasping for something), that seems bad and like I’d get charged with some crime.
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The fetus's lack of choice doesn't matter. The host woman's bodily autonomy is all that matters. Even if the fetus were a human being.
 
)
Life begins at conception. That is, upon conception, it is a living human being.
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That's debatable. but really not necessary for the argument. But.. I would just point out.. that if you believe that life begins at conception..then using the PILL... would be abortion..since one way in which the pill works is to make the uterus insufficient for a fertilized egg.

2) In general, we do not have a right to cause someone to die. E.g., murder is bad.
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Not true at all. We take people off medical interventions all the time. That is in essence killing them.

We give people lethal doses of medication to keep people out of pain..knowing that its lessening their life.. or outright possible to kill them

Some states allow actual lethal medications to end suffering (physician assisted suicide).

Not to mention self defense.

the point being..is that we have all sorts of times when killing another person is perfectly legal and fine. Usually when 1. Anothers life is at risk
2. When the family decides that they want to end the suffering of a loved one
3. A person decides themselves they want to end their suffering.

In fact..its kind of an irony here when it comes to abortion...many abortion opponents.. fight tooth and nail to prevent a person from using the PILL...

have no problem with a parent deciding to withhold lifesaving medicine, blood transfusions etc from a 6 year old..because of religion.

The real issue is WHO decides.?

In general.. society says that the family is the one that has the most say over the government. If my father is suffering on lifesupport..then I have the decision to take him off life support. Or in some states.. to have a lethal does administered if he is suffering.
Why is this different if my wife and I don't want our unborn child to suffer because they have a debilitating birth defect that will mean they will suffer for maybe a week and then likely die?

Why is it different if my wife is at risk for death.. or of becoming sterile.. or... etc etc etc.

Who is best to make these decisions? A government official who says "sorry but you only have a 90% chance of death and under the law you need a 91% chance of death?

Or should this be between the family and their doctor?
 
My body, my choice

I hear some people argue some version of this, or say that women's sense of identity, sexuality, or some other quality is tied to the right to abortion. This is the part I really do not understand and would like clarification on.
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It's simple; women believe that men shouldn't have a say on things because men already control so many things and women wan't the domain of deciding who gets to live or die all to themselves.

Meanwhile, said women are perfectly happy for men to vote in support of abortion. So they don't really have a problem with men having a say, they have a problem with men who disagree with them getting a say.
 
vegas giants said:
No one can force you to risk your life for someone else.
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Good thing we don't do that then. If women don't want to risk their life for someone else, there's a very simple way to avoid it, and the government fully supports it.

I'll let you figure out what it is.
 
Crusader13 said:
Good thing we don't do that then. If women don't want to risk their life for someone else, there's a very simple way to avoid it, and the government fully supports it.

I'll let you figure out what it is.
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Yep. It's called abortion. Government fully supports it
 
JeenLeen said:
....

My body, my choice

I hear some people argue some version of this, or say that women's sense of identity, sexuality, or some other quality is tied to the right to abortion. This is the part I really do not understand and would like clarification on.

....
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Crusader13 said:
It's simple; women believe that men shouldn't have a say on things because men already control so many things and women wan't the domain of deciding who gets to live or die all to themselves.

Meanwhile, said women are perfectly happy for men to vote in support of abortion. So they don't really have a problem with men having a say, they have a problem with men who disagree with them getting a say.
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False. Bodily autonomy means a person has control over whom or what uses their body, for what, and for how long.
 
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I'm not going to address everything I want to because I'm in a lot of pain (root canal the other day and today is the worst so far for pain) and can only think so much right now.

I do agree that a new, unique life begins at fertilization. I do not agree that it's a person. Personhood is a social construct and that is granted upon live birth. However, even if it were a person, it would not necessarily mean that it can't/shouldn't be killed.

We allow killing of people in self defense. Abortion is self defense, given the effects a pregnancy has and can have on a woman's body. At the very least, it will cause her great discomfort and pain. There are many other possible side effects, some of which may last for the rest of her life. There is also a risk of death. No woman should be forced to go through gestation and childbirth. Ever.
 
Phys251 said:
It doesn't matter. Fault or no fault. It doesn't matter. There is not anywhere in America that forces you to donate an organ to another human, even to save their life. Bodily autonomy, it's the law.
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I agree with that conclusion, but it doesn't help the analogy which is constructed as a mechanism to debate that conclusion. The analogy leaves out an important element, which is personal responsibility.
 
Tlrmln said:
I agree with that conclusion, but it doesn't help the analogy which is constructed as a mechanism to debate that conclusion. The analogy leaves out an important element, which is personal responsibility.
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We do not deny medical treatment to anyone else because of personal responsibility
 
JeenLeen said:
I realize what I really mean is that Personhood begins at conception. And the act of killing a Person is what is generally wrong.
The reasons are the theological ones above.

I find it hard to really argue that it’s wrong to generally kill people. Yes, examples of self-defense or defense of others can justify it, and perhaps as punishment (not here to debate death penalty), but I think it’s hard to argue that purposefully causing the death of an innocent without good cause is bad. Legally-allowed maybe, but not okay.
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Then you're just begging the question.

We shouldn't be making laws based on theological reasons. Instead, you need to do the hard work necessary to demonstrate that it's objectively "not okay." You have, apparently, rejected my invitation to do so.
 
vegas giants said:
We do not deny medical treatment to anyone else because of personal responsibility
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You're totally missing the point. Sorry, I don't have the energy to explain it to you.
 
Dragonfly said:
Please - read this when you have time.

The abortion debate - Carl Sagan
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Wow, thank you! What a well reasoned case they make!

Very interesting

JeenLeen said:
I'm hoping to have a civil and 'in good faith' discussion about abortion.
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To the OP, I recommend you read the above link carefully - it's making me rethink some of my own stance on the issue.

jaeger19 said:
)In general.. society says that the family is the one that has the most say over the government. If my father is suffering on lifesupport..then I have the decision to take him off life support. Or in some states.. to have a lethal does administered if he is suffering.
Why is this different if my wife and I don't want our unborn child to suffer because they have a debilitating birth defect that will mean they will suffer for maybe a week and then likely die?
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Very good question / analogy as well!
 
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Tlrmln said:
I agree with that conclusion, but it doesn't help the analogy which is constructed as a mechanism to debate that conclusion. The analogy leaves out an important element, which is personal responsibility.
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Yet again that does not matter whatsoever. Hell I could have modified the analogy to, someone drove their car into me, was clearly at fault, smashed my kidneys, and was the only one who could donate a kidney, and they still should not be forced to give up a kidney. Bodily autonomy is the single most important thing here.
 
minnie616 said:
False. Bodily autonomy means a person has control over whom or what uses their body, for what, and for how long.
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I agree with you. What you're not understanding is that women cant just pull out of a process they've already consented to. If I sign a contract I don't get to just abandon it because I changed my mind. When a woman has sex, she's knowingly consented to her body being used. If women don't want to get pregnant, simply don't allow your body to be used. Going out of your way to trap an innocent child in your womb then killing it is not a right you get to demand.
 
Cordelier said:
If you don't have autonomy over your own body, then what freedom can you possibly have?
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Your right to bodily autonomy doesn't give you the right to flail your arms about in a crowded elevator, or to not charge a machine gun when ordered to do so by your CO in time of war.

Does that mean you have no freedom, whatsoever?
 
A lot of people who have an ideological stake in this debate don't seem to understand the realities of pregnancy. It's a permanently body altering experience. It can potentially kill you. A lot of women are disfigured forever by child birth. Most people won't ever really know because they don't have medical experience. Maybe they have experience through their partner giving birth, but even that is not the same as knowing the medical realities of pregnancy across the board. Nature is messy, unkind, and often lethal.

When you actually want to be pregnant, it's already a huge ordeal. If you've never been pregnant, you'll never really understand. I can't imagine the horror of being forced to be pregnant.

Coupled to this are myriad delusions about human sexuality and how it "should" work versus how it actually plays out in our world.

What's going to happen is that Roe v Wade will be challenged. If it's not defeated, then all the draconian laws recently passed will be shot down. If it's defeated, then it means SCOTUS has been severely compromised in the short term. In the long-term, better legislation will be made to protect right to abortion. It's the only way.
 
The way I figure it - and from a purely constitutional perspective - a fetus cannot be considered a person. If it were otherwise, then citizenship would be granted at conception, would it not?
 
Cordelier said:
The way I figure it - and from a purely constitutional perspective - a fetus cannot be considered a person. If it were otherwise, then citizenship would be granted at conception, would it not?
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Whether something has a right to live, and whether it should be a citizen, are two completely unrelated issues.

I wonder why people are so afraid to actually discuss the core issues that matter in this debate: what is it about a human being that makes it wrong to kill one, and why do those facts apply to human embryos in utero?
 
Tlrmln said:
Your right to bodily autonomy doesn't give you the right to flail your arms about in a crowded elevator, or to not charge a machine gun when ordered to do so by your CO in time of war.

Does that mean you have no freedom, whatsoever?
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No rights are absolute... all of them are subject to restrictions imposed by law, subject to judicial review. If we're talking about infringing on a woman's right to privacy via state law and compelling her to carry a fetus to term against her will, then the highest standard of judicial review - strict scrutiny - must be applied by the Courts. Strict scrutiny demands that the law in question meet three legal threshholds:

1. It must by justified by a compelling governmental interest.
2. The law or policy must be narrowly tailored to achieve that goal or interest.
3. The law or policy must be the least restrictive means for achieving that interest: there must not be a less restrictive way to effectively achieve the compelling government interest.

Do you seriously believe that any of the anti-abortion laws passed this week meet those three criteria?
 
Tlrmln said:
Whether something has a right to live, and whether it should be a citizen, are two completely unrelated issues.

I wonder why people are so afraid to actually discuss the core issues that matter in this debate: what is it about a human being that makes it wrong to kill one, and why do those facts apply to human embryos in utero?
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You're attempting to make a philosophical/theological argument... not a legal one. I think it's a mistake to try and confuse the two.
 
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