The One Pro-Choice Argument That I've Never Seen Used Anywhere Else
If you were walking alone on an empty beach and you saw a person drowning offshore, what would you do, assuming you were a competent swimmer and no lifeguard was available? Would you swim out to the person and try to save him or her? Would it be criminal not to even try if you were otherwise able?
No law that I know of anywhere in the world requires any person to sacrifice, or even to risk their life to save another person in trouble. Many have tried to pass "Good Samaritan" laws, but the farthest I've ever seen such attempts go to is to require that a witness to a person in trouble notify the authorities. Even repressive governments are loath to force their citizens to risk their own life or health to save someone else, no matter how noble such effort might be if done voluntarily.
People do heroic things all the time to save others -- donate their own or deceased relatives' organs, enter burning buildings, jump into icy waters, take a bullet for a comrade -- but not because anybody legislated that they had to. People risk their lives for others out of a sense of love, duty, compassion, and an on-the-spot evaluation that the probability of a successful outcome is high.
Pregnancy, even where the best medical care is available, is always risky for the mother -- the probability of death or permanent damage may be very small, but it is not zero. Women still do die in childbirth, despite the best efforts of the best-trained doctors in the world, and women die in large numbers in parts of the world where pregnancy and childbirth receive little trained medical attention. Pregnancy and childbirth are, therefore, not risk-free activities.
Compelling a woman to bring a pregnancy to term against her will would therefore be compelling her to assume a life-threatening risk against her will. Those who would deny women the right to an abortion compel them to take risks that no other member of society is legally required to take. Thus, women are singled out for special treatment based solely on their gender, and the biological characteristics of that gender.
Gender is an accident of birth, like skin color or hair color. The individual has no control over it. Our society, through its laws, forbids discrimination against individuals for traits that they cannot help having. Forcing women to become pregnant and to stay pregnant just because they can be impregnated is forcing a risk of injury or death on one class of citizens that is not imposed on others.
Moreover, as a corollary to the principle of the right to individual privacy, and as a fundamental human right, no one, whether a fully-formed human being or not, has the inherent right to demand the use of the life support system of another human being. No one has the right to demand sustenance from another, and no one is compelled to give to another what they must use to sustain themselves.
Self-preservation is the overriding law of nature, not reproduction. That anyone freely provide such sustenance to another is noble, but it cannot be required by law, because the natural law (which conservatives such as Anton Scalia love to cite) imposes by instinct that preservation of the self always overrides preservation of the other.
It is interesting to observe that the most vociferous opponents of abortion are the stingiest when it comes to supporting social programs to help the millions of unwanted children who are born each year. To groups like Concerned Women for America (CWA), I'd like to say that I'll believe that you are concerned, that you are Americans, and above all, that you are women, when your membership is lined up around the block outside abortion clinics and hospitals waiting to offer your wombs to take over unwanted or high-risk pregnancies. The technology exists to transplant pregnancies. So, if you're serious about protecting unborn life, here's your chance. Volunteer your bodies today in the service of somebody else's life. Volunteering is heroic. Forcing somebody else to assume a risk that you wouldn't assume yourself is selfish, illogical, and, fortunately, illegal.
Put up or shut up.
Maybe we can take the money w
Maybe we can take the money we pissing away on faith-based programs and put into a scientific Manhattan Project to figure out a way to transplant embryos from those who do not want to carry it, to women who volunteer to do so.
Let's get one of those take a number thingies from the bank and wait for the pro-lifers to get in line.
Any takers?
Technology is being worked on
Technology is being worked on to create artificial wombs. Women who have unwanted pregnancies but do not want to terminate the fetus will soon be able to transplant the embryo into the artificial womb, thus "killing" two birds with one stone, while not actually "killing" anything. Pro-life meets Pro-choice in "pro-chosing life."
Being a male, and therefore i
Being a male, and therefore impregnable (pun intended), I always hesitate to offer an opinion on this issue. From a civil liberties standpoint however, individual freedom of choice is among the inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and it does not grant these freedoms based on gender, race, or religious belief. They apply to all Americans.
You are, if nothing else, con
You are, if nothing else, consistent. heh heh heh...
One-track mind: all Constitut
One-track mind: all Constitution, all of the time.
I know I'm going to get fried for this but...
I am a liberal guy. Far more to the left than most people. However, I think that if someone gets pregnant, they should deal with the responsibility. You know, I don't think there is a soul on this board who honestly thinks pregnancy mysteriously manifests out of thin air. If you are willing to, as my friend Robert so eloquently put it 'Take the risk of having a child for one little @$$ "pump" ' (Forgive him, he puts things rather crudely sometimes...)then you better wrap your head around being a parent too.
Having gotten that out, it would be quite nice if we can spend more money on our child welfare system so we could offer pregnant women 'full term' health coverage and eventual adoption services to a fully funded and reformed group home system.
Thats all I'm gonna say on the issue folks.
Now the fun begins. Call me a freeper and troll till your hearts content, it won't really affect me.
I will still hate Bush and his administration and would love to see him out of office.
If "someone" gets pregnant? L
If "someone" gets pregnant? Let's see -- would that include a teenage girl who received "abstinence only" advice, but not any information on contraceptives? Would that include a victim of rape -- whether forced or statutory? Would that include a victim of incest?
You and your friend Robert are wrong.
Pregnant
I have heard all the arguments in regards to this subject Plain truth most abortions are just another form of birthcontrol and yes for all you extreme femenists there are some cases for an abortion RAPE, INSEST,Possible death due to to full term. However the rule in my mind (father of three great kids)is YOU PLAY YOU PAY PERIOD and you can argue this till you are blue in the face abortion is terminating Life THATS IT! So go make peace with GOD not me.
Just so we're clear on this,
Just so we're clear on this, would that be YOUR God?
Pro-lifers are very consisten
Pro-lifers are very consistent on this. They do not want to allow abortions to occur under ANY circumstances, rape, incest, health of the mother, lack of education, whatever.
The case you are speaking of is just one scenario, and yes, personal responsibility on both parents applies somewhere. I totally agree that if the mother decides to carry it and she needs assistance, she should be able to have it.
I don't think you're a troll, you're just wrong.
I'm pro-life but I lack that
I'm pro-life but I lack that consistency. I hit a brick wall when faced with isses like the risk of death to a mother if she goes on with the pregnancy or the issue of rape. These are tough situations and I cannot hold to the belief that in those situations they MUST NOT have an abortion. Truly it is a difficult plight. I guess I'm Pro-Choife...
I agree with you to an extent
I agree with you to an extent. I think if you do the deed unprotected and are well aware of what you are doing then you should deal with the responsibility. You really can't tell though if you allow one person to get an abortion how can you not allow someone else?
If I got my girlfriend pregnant I would be upset if she got an abortion... I think it is something we should deal with.... but it IS her body not mine... I don't think I can have much say in it... and how can I be mad at her?
"I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies"
I would just like to point ou
I would just like to point out that this thread is getting dangerously close to crossing the line:
http://democrats.com/abortion
And I would like to point out
And I would like to point out that this is exactly why this argument - or whatever name you want to give it, rather, this issue - shouldn't be in "politics" or made political. What people have to wrap their heads around is that it's up to a woman and her doctor. Period. And it's no one else's business. To have this be a political issue that divides people in the pernicious way it has is absolutely nuts, not to mention is (and the gay issue) being used as a convenient wedge issue to further divide people. Well, grrl, you're not a geek. I couldn't have put it better myself. The very idea that a clause to save a woman's life was left out in the last yahoo "abortion" bill was shameful, but sadly, doesn't surprise me.
And that is precisely the rea
And that is precisely the reason for the rule. This board is definitely not the right venue to argue this non-political issue.
Chill, Bill...
Note the title of the thread. The essential idea is not to argue for choice (I'd be preaching to the choir here, anyway), but to point out that *I* have never seen anyone make the argument I described in support of the right to choice. Nobody. Ever. Maybe somebody has and I missed it, but *I* haven't seen it.
Maybe the fault is mine for not making it clear enough that *I* think that the Democratic Party leadership does not seem to have taken up a sufficiently vigorous defense of the right to choose if it hasn't considered and argued the question from all angles. If you miss a valid argument, you haven't considered the issue from all angles.
And I'm also disappointed in the party leadership that hasn't taken the GOP to task for its indifference to post-born children. The Dems need to go for the throat in pointing out that Republicans don't want the government to help hard-luck kids once it succeeds in forcing their mothers to give birth to them, and that their position is irresponsible, indefensible, and insane in a presumably civilized society.
That's all.
My comment wasn't directed at
My comment wasn't directed at you, or at anyone in particular. Your point was well made, and no I haven't heard anyone make it before.
I have, however, seen other threads on here get totally out of hand on this topic, and I was just trying to point that out.
Sorry if I offended...
You didn't offend, I just wondered if you got the point.
Why isn't this conversation
concerning unwanted children directed at men? Why isn't your sperm and sex organs regulated and policed by the government? Why don't anti-abortion groups picket in front of the home of the man who impregnates a woman who consequently seeks an abortion? How did it come to be that the healthcare and personal life decisions made by women not a part of your life, are any of your business at all? Don't you have any friends who are paying child support for 21 years, in exchange for that one-night-stand a couple of years ago?
Yes, those one night stands s
Yes, those one night stands sure are left up to those women, aren't they? Thanks, CJ.
The argument that childbirth is more ...
dangerous than abortion has been made constantly for over 30 years. There is no doubt that it is. Careful research has proven it over and over again.
The literature is available and was written by women from the days of the suffragettes forward...about 100 years worth. The results of these comments and studies finally made it into settled law with Roe v Wade.
seen this argument before
Except for the last paragraph, I have seen this argument
before. I can't remember which author at this site wrote
it, possibly Sherry Colb. Look through the archives of her
columns. She has several other related columns that are
worth reading as well.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/
Mary
Try this article
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/colb/20040316.html
I'm just wondering
how long this country is going to allow itself to be manipulated by issues like this which place a host of paralogisms and "beliefs" ahead of science or actual individual and public interest. Bah don't bother answering. It's a beautiful distraction and while we all learn to hate each other for breaking our eggs on the wrong end we can contiue to feed the beasts that so desperately rely on our distraction.
If you must rehash this *again* go back and examine what distinguishes Potential/Viable/Actual persons. In the meantime I think I'll go back to watching E.T. :D
LIBERAL: If the word bothers you, then you don't know what it means.
BORING
Pro-choice...means u can are free to choose what u want, sound familiar? Wow sounds like the U.S. Constitution. Abortion is wrong according to those bushevek, dumb religious, conservative losers...then y has the GOP controlled Congress, supreme court, and presidency dont anything to ban abortion...CAUSE THEY DONT GIVE A DAMN. Pro-life...yet they support death penalty...that makes sense, im a vegetarian yet i eat steak...dumbasses. Then the lazy ass conservatives try to ban everything like pornagraphy, internet bull shit, and strip joints so they wont be burdened by something like supervising their childred. Fuck spoiled brats. All conservatives should be packed into a cannon and shot towards a wall. Only place where u hear pro life and pro choice are areas located in Dumbfuckistan
http://www.projectsomewhere.com/img/1/5506,534,800,80.jpg
see link for location of dumbfuckistan
The US Constitution is a docu
The US Constitution is a document to protect certain rights of its citizens, it is not a pass for you to do whatever you want. The constitution does not give your right to murder and steal does it? Didn't think so.
now before you label me as some conservative freeper, I'll tell you my position.
I think abortion is an option under certain circumstances, however I would like to see better dissemination of contraceptive education so as to curve pregancy (and abortion) rates.
As for the death penalty, I believe it is wrong only because it isn't giving the victim justice. For real justice to be done, the criminal who would normally get the death penalty should be left to rot for the rest of his natural life in a windowless cell.
hmmm
hmmm. I believe the argument about pro-choice has nothing to do with stealing...u sound like a repug dumbass that compares Iraq to Afghanistan. Abortion should be an option for whores that cant leep their pants zipped...or for retarded kids that will live a life of bull shit in a wheel chair. I wouldnt want a kid to grow up with a mom that takes it in the ass and pussy at the same time in gang bangs in some hood rat zone while learning to fend for themself at 4. Im simply saying the Constitution...or should i have stated to Dec of INd...we all have the Right to Inailenable rights...and banning abortion violates that.
..........backing away silently......
Spirituality exists without organized religion
brian@takebackamerica.us
Beating our heads against a wall
How many times and in how many different ways must we discuss this issue before we've decided that we've done it?
This is settled Constitutional law. It's an all-or-nothing issue that has been ruled on by SCOTUS. Our Constitution does not allow that only some women should have the right to choice, just as it cannot allow that some women should have to bear children, even if it means they will surely die from childbirth.
It does not allow that the government can force men to take employ activities that are life-threatening, just as it does not allow that the government can force women to do the same.
It is not a moral issue. It is a Constitutional issue - and again, it's been settled.
http://blog.democrats.com/abortion
Republicans may very well be happy with the idea that our Constitution is something that should be changed on whim - we do not have to join them. Someone, somewhere needs to be responsible enough to respect the document even if our legislators refuse to fulfill their oaths to defend it.
This thread has gotten ugly. That is a predictable response when people attempt to discuss moral issues on a political board.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.