America's War On Abortion

[yourhairiswinterfire]

I'm just watching this on ITV, I don't know if it's a repeat, but God, it's so upsetting.

Pro-lifers pitch up everyday outside an abortion clinic in Alabama shouting abuse through megaphones at the women attending, calling them whores, sluts, ''look at the way she's dressed, showing her legs'', murderers, they deserve to bleed to death... It's just absolutely awful. The only positive is that there are volunteers who shield the women from view of the protesters with opened umbrellas as they make their way into the clinic.

One of the women had an abortion because her baby boy likely wouldn't survive, she was devastated, and she had to go through vile pricks hurling insults at her as she was making probably the hardest, most painful decision of her life :(

The campaigners racially abused the presenter, Deeyah Khan, and told her she'd probably get raped that night because of the jeans she was wearing. She bravely confronted them, and they told her ''we're not letting women speak right now''.

I'm just furious watching it. So, so angry on behalf of those women. Men thinking they own women's bodies, and some of their wives in tow, proudly declaring that they ''obey'' their husbands.

Absolute woman hating bastards, shouting 'the land of the free' whilst shaming and protesting women's freedoms.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

That’s kind of a mistaken title though. Abortion law is mostly by State. So there is no “America war” on abortion. While some states ARE severely restricting abortions, other states like New York are relaxing laws for abortions.

It’s no surprise they picked Alabama as that’s the most extreme state for restricting abortions.

[WeeBisom]

"The "bodily autonomy" argument doesn’t convince me either as it fails to take account of the unique situation applying to a pregnancy."

I think the unique situation of pregnancy is even more persuasive in favour of abortion. We have absolutely no obligation to use our body to save anyone else - there was a tragic case in the USA where a little boy was dying of cancer and he needed a bone marrow transplant. His father was a match, but his dad refused to donate the bone marrow. The court said that a father could not be compelled to donate marrow even if it meant his kid would die. As another example, if you saw a child drowning in a puddle you are under absolutely no legal obligation to save its life. This is the approach of the law in the case of actual living people! And the reason for this is simple - we have absolute autonomy over ourselves and cannot be legally compelled to sacrifice anything to save the life of another. There must be full consent,

Turning now to abortion, the situation is even more stark because the life in question is using up your bodily resources - the life is inside you. Pregnancy is also not as simple as donating blood or bone marrow - it can end in death, disability, pain, and life long bodily and psychological changes. So if there is no obligation to even pick a child out of a puddle, there can equally be no obligation to expect a woman to sacrifice her body and possibly even her life or mental health for someone else.

[DidoLamenting]

I think the unique situation of pregnancy is even more persuasive in favour of abortion. We have absolutely no obligation to use our body to save anyone else -

I don't see that as equivalent at all. You , general you , are not "saving" anybody in carrying through a pregnancy. You are with the exception of rape doing what your body was designed to as a result of your own actions.

I'm in favour of choice but to be honest I don't find the arguments put forward terribly persuasive. It's a sort of lesser of two bad things but morally and logically I have no difficulty understanding the "pro - life" case.

[DidoLamenting]

@PhoebeSnow

Do you honestly think that any girl or woman makes the choice to have an abortion lightly Dido? Seriously? You have a right to your opinion, however a great many people disagree.
Safe legal abortion, as early as possible should be a right for any woman anywhere, and for whatever reason.
Women have ended pregnancies since recorded time, thousands and thousands of women have probably died over centuries due to unsafe abortion, and any end to safe legal abortion anywhere will drive women back to desperate measures. No woman should ever again have to use a coat hanger, or knitting needle to end an unwanted pregnancy.
I have lost three pregnancies in my lifetime and those experiences have made me even more pro choice than I was before hand.

I hope you enjoyed your rant given I said nothing about curtailing the right to have an abortion.

And yes , as it happens ,I do think some women are very careless and lax about contraception. Julie Burchill and her 6 , I think, abortions for example.

[PhoebeSnow]

What Julie Burchill, or any other woman does with her own body is entirely up to her!

[WeeBisom]

"You , general you , are not "saving" anybody in carrying through a pregnancy. You are with the exception of rape doing what your body was designed to as a result of your own actions."

But when you are pregnant you are supporting a life. You are using your body to keep another being alive. I don't see why women have to be compelled to keep this process going if they don't want to.
This smacks of the naturalistic fallacy to me . If I smoke and get lung cancer, my body is just doing what it is designed to do as a result of my actions (lungs are apt to get cancerous if I smoke) but that doesn't mean I have to sit back and accept the growth of the tumours. Humans have always intervened with biological processes and bodily functions - that's the entire point of contraception.

What I detect here, with the talk of rape and with the mention of Julie Burchill's six abortions and 'carelessness', is a bit of a drive to punish women or at the very least to force them to entirely confront the consequences of their own choices. Rape victims didn't choose to get pregnant so they are permitted to get an abortion - suddenly the concern for the life of the innocent foetus goes out the window. But the problem with this argument is that the end result is you are forcing reluctant, careless women to have children - you are essentially treating a child as a life lesson. And children, to my mind, have to be entirely embraced and wanted. If a woman is so chaotic and dysfunctional in her life she keeps getting accidentally pregnant when she doesn't want children then I don't see how it's a good idea to force her to become a mother. It's not good for her and it's not good for the kid. You can't force people to become sensible or virtuous by having children.

[DidoLamenting]

@PhoebeSnow

What Julie Burchill, or any other woman does with her own body is entirely up to her!

Did I say it wasn’t? A poster was suggesting no woman ever makes the decision lightly to have an abortion. Julie Burchill has been quite open in treating abortion as just another method of contraception.

I do not oppose the right to have an abortion. I have no wish to change the UK law , which , despite the 2 doctor rule , is one of the most liberal in the world. At the same time I find the "pro- life" arguments more logical than the "pro-choice" arguments.

[DidoLamenting]

This smacks of the naturalistic fallacy to me . If I smoke and get lung cancer, my body is just doing what it is designed to do as a result of my actions

That strikes me as absurd an argument and as false an analogy as the " famous violinist" argument.

Your lungs are there so you can breathe- you might choose to abuse them by inhaling poison but comparing that to becoming pregnant is absurd.

[SnuggyBuggy]

Besides anything they can't seriously think they are going to convince women to carry on with the pregnancies by calling them horrible names? I'm questioning their real motivations here.

[WeeBisom]

@DidoLamenting, you were the one who said that pregnancy is a case of your body doing what it was designed to do as a result of your own actions. But there are loads of things our bodies do as a result of our actions, and no one suggests that we are just stuck dealing with the consequences of those choices. You aren't really engaging with the substance of my points.

[Mumoftwoinprimary]

I don’t like abortion. I wish there were less abortions. Legislation should be passed so that there are less abortions. This is how:-

1. Access to contraception. I am a woman in my early 40s with a non abusive husband who is very pro contraception. I have plenty of money, access to a car, a flexible job, excellent health (no form of contraception is unavailable to me) but I still have a nightmare once a year getting access to contraception. The family planning clinic in my city has been shut down due to funding issues so I need a nurse appointment at my GP. Average (non Covid) wait - six weeks. If I struggle with all my advantages then how does it work if you are 16 or your husband is abusive? Family planning clinics should be refunded and walk in with a wide range of hours.
   
2. 2 child rule. It is disgusting. No civilised country should have it.
   
3. Child support agency or whatever it is called. It needs teeth. Sharks teeth to be exact. We jail people for not paying council tax. Debt to the CSA should be treated identically to council tax debt.
   
4. Domestic abuse. Women need to be properly protected from violent ex partners and to know they will be.
   
5. Men’s attitude to contraception and abortion. Men genuinely think that they should get a say in whether their partner keeps their baby or not. As a result they don’t see condoms as their one and only chance to prevent an unwanted pregnancy - they think “she can just get an abortion”. This needs to be explained to them over and over as part of sex education in schools. It needs to be something that “everyone knows”. The world is round, if you are male and having sex then you have no say post ejaculation.
   

Even if we do all that some pregnant women will choose to end their pregnancies and they absolutely have the right to do this. But right now we have women terminating because they know the CSa is useless and they won’t get benefits for their (3rd) child. And that is something that we should all hang our heads in shame for.

[Twizbe]

@DidoLamenting the pro choice argument is just that, that women can choose whether to continue a pregnancy or not. They can choose to get pregnant when they want to as well. It's essence is that I can make a choice for me and my body, but I cannot make the choice for you or your body. I cannot force you to abort nor to have a baby.

You can be pro life for yourself and know that an abortion isn't something you could do, while still respecting that you are not the same as me and that my choice might be different.

Pro life removes the choice and says that everyone else must agree with you and do as you say.

(For clarity, I use you and me in the general sense not as you specifically)

[DidoLamenting]

[quote WeeBisom]@DidoLamenting, you were the one who said that pregnancy is a case of your body doing what it was designed to do as a result of your own actions. But there are loads of things our bodies do as a result of our actions, and no one suggests that we are just stuck dealing with the consequences of those choices. You aren't really engaging with the substance of my points.[/quote]
I am engaging- you are confusing not agreeing with you for not engaging.

I have already said your analogy is false. Carrying a baby is exactly what a womb is designed for; lungs are not there to assist in their deliberate poisoning by smoking.

[WeeBisom]

@didolamenting: oh sorry, you just didn't address my points about 1) the fact there is no legal requirement to donate blood to save another's life 2) the lack of good Samaritan laws 3) the fact we don't make people live with the consequences of other unwise choices, 4) the argument that pregnancy being an internal process makes bodily autonomy even more significant 5) the fact that pro-life rhetoric often has a punitive element to it which is morally and practically unhelpful. I used to be a philosophy professor so I certainly don't confuse disagreement with a lack of engagement.

Talking about what the womb is 'designed for' is a naturalistic fallacy. We are 'designed' for all kinds of things but it doesn't mean that interfering with those processes is morally wrong, nor does it mean we have an ethical duty to fulfil that purpose. My body is designed to ovulate but I take medication to stop that process. Also, because you seem so persuaded by the pro-life arguments it would be good to hear from you why you think they are so persuasive.

[DidoLamenting]

@DidoLamentingthe pro choice argument is just that, that women can choose whether to continue a pregnancy or not

I haven't said anything about curtailing that right. I still don't find the pro- choice arguments logical - some are simply absurd.

The problem as I see it is that the only logical argument for abortion is convenience. The pro-life arguments about not killing are far more logical. Saying I'm going to have an abortion because it's more convenient (and "convenient can have as wide a meaning as you want) is a very blunt statement but it's honest.

And I don't subscribe to the idea we should never judge another woman. I've seen posters on MN explain they had an abortion because they hadn't been careful about contraception, had been careless about taking their pill. I won't ever campaign to have the UK abortion laws changed but in cases like that I will think you, general you are an adult woman- take some responsibility for your life.

[DidoLamenting]

you just didn't address my points about 1) the fact there is no legal requirement to donate blood to save another's life 2) the lack of good Samaritan laws 3) the fact we don't make people live with the consequences of other unwise choices, 4) the argument that pregnancy being an internal process makes bodily autonomy even more significant 5) the fact that pro-life rhetoric often has a punitive element to it which is morally and practically unhelpful. I used to be a philosophy professor so I certainly don't confuse disagreement with a lack of engagement

It is impossible to address such a specious argument. There is no requirement for any of these things but they are not the same as a pregnancy. Rape, incest aside a foetus came into existence by an act on the part of the woman concerned. The foetus only exists because of her and can only exist in her body.

You, general you, can find as many ways as you like of reiterating the "famous violinist" argument- it doesn't make it any more convincing.

[HBGKC]

I would like to point out that not all anti-abortion demonstrators are like those described in the OP (who sound horrendous).

And that not all Christians are like that either, whether they be pro-life or not.

[NiceGerbil]

The wording 'designed for' is very interesting.

Intelligent design anyone?

[PhoebeSnow]

To be fair there are a few groups in the UK and USA that do offer financial support to pregnant women to enable them to choose to not to have an abortion, but any forced birthing is wrong.

[GoatCheeseTart]

Occasionally they throw you a bone ajd "approve " in the case of incest or rape, like that makes them an ok person.

Which shows exactly that it's never about the baby. Baby conceived through rape is still a baby and if it was about the unborn, would be just as precious. But it isn't. It's all about punishing the woman.

[HBGKC]

I agree that disapproving of abortion but ok-ing exceptions for rape/incest is not a logically coherent position. I disagree that all those who hold such a position (and I think there's probably a significant number) do so out of a desire to 'punish the woman'.

If the argument is bodily autonomy, it is also logically incoherent to approve of abortions up to X number of weeks (24 in the UK), but not after. The logical position, on the basis of bodily autonomy and 'anti-forced-birth' would allow for abortions up to birth, no questions asked. But you'll find far FAR fewer people who'll support that than up to 24 weeks.

People are not machines. Their brains are capable of far more nuance than a strictly logical algorithmic approach caters for. It doesn't make them wrong, necessarily; just not automata,

[NiceGerbil]

Well that all sounds very fancy but nuance is needed all through. Where the foetus has a condition incompatible with life, where the continued pregnancy will kill the woman, where the continued pregnancy will result in the woman's murder or suicide etc. Destitution for her existing children. And so on.

The pro life people seem to have little room for, not nuance. Just basic empathy.

The idea that if women can choose to terminate to birth just because they feel like it, they will do so in anything resembling significant numbers, is an inherently misogynistic idea.

[NiceGerbil]

Let's not forget that a dead woman was kept on life support because she was pregnant. Quite early in pregnancy. Her body was rotting. Her existing children were very distressed. They used makeup but couldn't cover the smell. But. Foetal heartbeat denied the woman a dignified death and spelt horror for her husband and children.

Where's the nuance?

Ireland 2014.

[Dwrcegin]

I watched this last night. My god those women protestors were bad but bloody hell the "christian" men were horrendous. One even commenting about stoning women. The whole thing made my blood boil.

Evangelical fundamentalists want crush American women into the ground in the name of religion. I can see Roe v Wade being overturned and that will be tragic.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

@PhoebeSnow

To be fair there are a few groups in the UK and USA that do offer financial support to pregnant women to enable them to choose to not to have an abortion, but any forced birthing is wrong.

For many years I was part of a local project where families took pregnant and parenting teenagers into their homes. Whenever it came up, all the families were pro-choice. Not one forced birther there to support these young women. A few Christians though.