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The Stigma of Abortion

Marrybore said:
Yes, I suppose it makes sense in the context.
But remember that, as I pointed out, you have no chance of ever being aborted, nor of ever having the chance to abort. Does this mean you get to judge those who do abort? I know you think women should choose for themselves but you still seem to judge them rather a lot. Of course, you can have an opinion on an issue while not being as directly implemented as some people, but can you really justify your moral judgement when you have never been through what pregnant women go through and never will? You were a former foetus, yes, but you might as well not have been, I doubt you can remember it, all you know of foetuses is what you've learnt following your time as a foetus.
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It is not necessary for me to have killed anyone to adjudge that Ted Bundy acted immorally in his killing sprees. I am not judging Ted Bundy. I'm adjudging his actions, based on what I believe to be a universal sense of morality.
 
Marrybore said:
Do you have the legal right to kill someone? Although I don't think abortion is equivalent to murder or at least morally wrong, you seem to think so.
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No, of course I don't have the legal right -- unless in extreme cases of self-defense, which must be adjudicated at any rate -- but I have the moral right (=freedom) to kill and, if the killing falls under the law, suffer the legal consequences of my act.
 
Angel said:
With all due respect, ladies, you're talking with someone who was born and raised in New York City and never once entertained the notion of purchasing the Brooklyn Bridge. In other words, save the Sermon on the Count for the congregation. The creative accounting you cite (and no doubt sincerely believe -- I don't doubt your sincerity for a moment, mind you) is just too counter-intuitive for my intellectual taste. That an act both illegal and morally suspect in one cultural context was performed with the same frequency as an act both legal and socially approved in another cultural context -- this is stuff only your fellow travelers will buy into, I'm afraid. No doubt the same sort of creative statistics could support an anti-temperance talking point that as much alcoholic consumption took place during National Prohibition as rakes place today. But it wouldn't be true.

At any rate, your argument is supererogatory, addressed as it is to someone who believes abortion should never have been declared illegal, and who believes that it must remain legal.
My quarrel is with Abortion Culture. With the moral dereliction of American culture. Even granting your creative statistics concerning pre-legalization, the best your argument can do is show that America was morally derelict throughout. Which does not refute my contention that America is morally derelict today, you see.
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Abortion was legal in America at the time of founding and remained legal, at least until quickening, until the 1800s and then, when anti-abortion laws began to be passed, they were passed for pragmatic reasons, nothing to do with "moral dereliction." Women assumed they had the right to abortion, so when men legislators tried to regulate them, they simply continued to do what was best for themselves and their families. For more, please read When Abortion Was a Crime by Leslie Regan.
When Abortion Was a Crime
 
Angel said:
I think you have something here.
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Everybody hates woke people, except for other woke people. Some people tolerate them but I think deep down inside the people that tolerate them only do so because they're inclined to their position.
 
Angel said:
With all due respect, ladies, you're talking with someone who was born and raised in New York City and never once entertained the notion of purchasing the Brooklyn Bridge. In other words, save the Sermon on the Count for the congregation. The creative accounting you cite (and no doubt sincerely believe -- I don't doubt your sincerity for a moment, mind you) is just too counter-intuitive for my intellectual taste. That an act both illegal and morally suspect in one cultural context was performed with the same frequency as an act both legal and socially approved in another cultural context -- this is stuff only your fellow travelers will buy into, I'm afraid. No doubt the same sort of creative statistics could support an anti-temperance talking point that as much alcoholic consumption took place during National Prohibition as rakes place today. But it wouldn't be true.

At any rate, your argument is supererogatory, addressed as it is to someone who believes abortion should never have been declared illegal, and who believes that it must remain legal.
My quarrel is with Abortion Culture. With the moral dereliction of American culture. Even granting your creative statistics concerning pre-legalization, the best your argument can do is show that America was morally derelict throughout. Which does not refute my contention that America is morally derelict today, you see.
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In 1970 abortion was illegal in 30 states. Twenty states had varying degrees of legality: 1 state for rape only, 2 states for health risk of mother only, 13 states for rape, incest, health risk for mother and/or fetus, 4 states on request. The CDC weekly bulletin reported quarterly statistics for legal abortions only. Illegal ones were not reported.

“A total of 99,721 legal abortions were reported for the entire United States between Jan,1 and March 31, 1971 .”
Center for Disease Control vol 21 number 4; week ending April 8, 1972: “Morbidity and Mortality: page 118
Google Books
The above number of abortions is for 3 months only. Assuming that monthly abortion numbers are fairly similar the rest of the year multiplying by 4 gives an estimate of the year’s total number of abortions of about 400,000 legal abortions. Making a rough guesstimate that there were half again as many illegal abortions in the 30 states that banned abortion the total probable number of abortions was 600,000

In 2016, 623,471 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from 48 reporting areas.
CDCs Abortion Surveillance System FAQs | CDC

Abort73, an anti-abortion site, says there were 890,000 abortions in the US in 2016. This may be true. For some unclear reason not all abortions are reported to the CDC.
Facts About Abortion: U.S. Abortion Statistics


So, in 2016 with a total population of 328M and 890,000 abortions .27% of the population gets abortions.

Fifty+ years ago with a total population of 205M and 600,000 combined legal and illegal abortions .29% of the population got abortions.

So, no making abortion legal hasn't created an abortion culture. It didn't increase the number of abortions it didn't increase the rate of abortion.
 
Angel said:
It is not necessary for me to have killed anyone to adjudge that Ted Bundy acted immorally in his killing sprees. I am not judging Ted Bundy. I'm adjudging his actions, based on what I believe to be a universal sense of morality.
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Based on "what you believe to be" a universal sense of morality. This is the thing: you may base your morals on an objective morality present within us all, but your feelings and experiences twist your morals into something that someone else could completely disagree with on moral grounds. A murderer may say by killing someone he did them a favour, because (for example) he thought their lives were so mundane and uninteresting it was mercy to kill them... I've heard serial killers say such things in interviews and the like. And here's the thing: that's grounded entirely in the "universal morality" we all possess. You judge people based on what you hold to be right, while they may be doing things they actually believe to be right - and yet there is no way of proving, even through logic, who is right and who is wrong.
 
Marrybore said:
Based on "what you believe to be" a universal sense of morality. This is the thing: you may base your morals on an objective morality present within us all, but your feelings and experiences twist your morals into something that someone else could completely disagree with on moral grounds. A murderer may say by killing someone he did them a favour, because (for example) he thought their lives were so mundane and uninteresting it was mercy to kill them... I've heard serial killers say such things in interviews and the like. And here's the thing: that's grounded entirely in the "universal morality" we all possess. You judge people based on what you hold to be right, while they may be doing things they actually believe to be right - and yet there is no way of proving, even through logic, who is right and who is wrong.
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The idea that there is a stigma about abortion is a fine example of the lack of universality of morality. There is no stigma for most. It exists for some.
 
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