Please can we talk about what "pro choice" means?

[BertrandRussell]

Some threads on here, and coincidentally, a couple of real life conversations prompted by a recent television programme, have made me think that there is an attempt to erode the meaning of the term. For me, pro choice means that a woman should be able to have an abortion within the law because she wants to. Her reasons are immaterial.

vNot a catchy title though is it user?!

I care more for accuracy than catchiness but then I don't belong to the soundbite generation!

And no-one has answered whether I am pro-life, despite having had an abortion, because I agree with the current limits?

Many people have answered it. You are pro-choice within the current legal limits. You have already self-defined it, why wait for anyone else to tell you?

my choice to stop whatever is growing in my body should be mine and mine alone, and have nothing to do with anyone else.
This, exactly.

Because others are keen to say that I can't be pro- choice on this basis - here and on the other thread

I too think the current law, cut off at 24 weeks is correct. You can of course get a termination after 24 weeks, which is right. But there needs to be good reasons: I'm not sure what the exact wording is but it's something like
i)life threatening for mum.
ii)severe disability for child.

I agree with that. That sits ok with me.
Which means it's not TRUE pro-choice, because if it was true pro-choice you would be able to get a termination at any time right up until birth, so we don't actually really have true pro choice if we are being specific here.

I am more pro choice then I am pro-life, but like many people I am a bit pro-life. I'm not completely coldhearted, i do consider the life/ the value of the foetus and the life of that - the possibility of becoming a human.

No one should be flippant, most people aren't, about having abortions. I think many people are actually - more pro choice but a bit pro-life but you would have to be almost cold hearted to say that you were 100% one or 100% the other.

rockpeddle it's the division that's the problem, as it's such an abstraction and deflects from the lived realities of women.

A woman in Northern Ireland wants to have an abortion. Against the law (so 'absolute choice') , so travels to the UK to have the procedure in a clinic with the consent of 2 doctors etc, so legally (therefore 'conditional choice).

"Ok Bertrand, but the terms dog and bone spring to mind."

Have you considered the terms kettle and black?

Why is this is the feminist section? Not that I have anything against this section, but shouldn't it be on the main board?

Well, I gave up a long time ago on the other thread - don't seem to have your stamina.

Indeed cedric. I am pro-choice if that means within the current legal framework. Apparently I'm not if it means that I don't think it's OK to terminate a healthy baby at 39 weeks gestation

I think it's a bit off to,start a debate based on the law when you don't appear to have a clear understanding of what the law is.

And yes, some understanding of why this is in the feminist chat section would be good m

So there is no-one saying women should, in some circumstance abort? This was said, on MN,

"Why should a baby have to survive instead of thrive? I'm not talking about "legal rights", I'm talking about the morality of knowingly inflicting serious suffering on a baby in the name of activism..."

In reference to saying a woman's decision to continue on with her pregnancy. Page 21 of this thread,

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/telly_addicts/2749317-a-world-without-down-s-syndrome?pg=21

Earlier on the same poster talks about the suffering experienced by people with Down's . Later on this poster posts about HCPs responsibility to their future patients i.e. the babies that are born with disabilities which could have been aborted, IHO.

I, like manaboutadog was shocked at that thread about the US woman and her baby, and thought that a prison sentence was totally inappropriate.

Well, i'm not lying Bertrand so you've obviously just not read all the millions of threads on here.
It does happen, far too often (but then just once would be once too often in my opinion)

As I said earlier, there are plenty of positions to hold between "on demand" and "never"

I'm pretty sure that a lot of people find the "never" stance difficult, particularly considering the behaviour of some extremists.

It seems to me that the issue lies with whether or not women have to justify themselves. Pro choice to viability-ie 24 weeks- is one thing. Pro choice to viability so long as you have a good reason is another.

Do you honestly think that many people are 100% pro one or the other?
I bet they aren't. Well, many/most aren't.

"I think it's a bit off to,start a debate based on the law when you don't appear to have a clear understanding of what the law is."

I do. Why don't you go and look it up? Then you will too.

What was the question again?

But according to some, "pro choice to viability with a good reason" isn't choice, as "a good reason" simply needs to be "because the mother wants to terminate".

user147 so if a pregnant woman is mugged and her unborn child dies in the attack, is the sadness and moral wrongdoing surrounding that entirely about the poor woman being assaulted and the fact that she has had something precious taken from her?

Or is the mugger also responsible for killing a person? A child?

I should say that the woman in question was heavily pregnant.

Gone, in my view that case it's someone else decided what happens within the woman's body. It wasn't the attacker's place to decide what happens to the woman's foetus so it should be a separate crime, in my view. I'd still think it should be a separate crime if someone attacked a pregnant woman who was on the way to abort the foetus and the baby subsequently died. The decision to terminate the pregnancy or not should be in the pregnant woman's hands.

Of course, if a woman pregnant with a much wanted baby is attacked and miscarries, or both die, it is very tragic and it's natural for both to be mourned. In my view, that shouldn't have a bearing on whether women should be able to choose to terminate a foetus that they are carrying and would have to give birth to.

Bertrand - I'm completely pro choice within the current legal parameters.
Whilst I believe non life threatening disability should also be brought into line with those parameters I support any decision to terminate before this for any reason.

Semantics aside I think that the need to qualify being pro-life as 'conditional' if you agree with anything other than unrestricted abortion to term is dangerous. Whatever you may think personally, only a small minority hold the view that abortion should be unrestricted until term. Claiming 'pro-choice' as a term only applying to unrestricted term abortion risks playing into the hands of the pro-life movement, especially in countries where abortion is still illegal or heavily restricted. It gives apparent credence to the noxious ' slippery slope argument' - eg 'The pro-Choice movement are actually demanding abortion until term - if we liberalise our existing abortion laws then this will be the next step...'.

What about 'Pro-choice' and 'Pro-unrestricted-choice' then?

If no modified terms are agreed with, how can we have terms which are definitive, as to what people might mean?