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There have been a number of anti-abortion threads on this board as of late and they all reiterate the same tired arguments. They get a bit tedious since they are the same simplistic arguments over and over again. I will try to tackle these common arguments with my own take on those arguments.
"Abortion is murder"
It's not murder in the sense that it is not killing a sentient being. A fetus is unconscious for most of its existence and even in the later stages it is not fully conscious either and it the early stages a fetus doesn't even have an active brain.
For example the law and most people consider someone who is brain dead to be legally and effectually dead because they are incapable of any brain activity. Hence the phrase "brain dead". Now, if someone who's brain has ceased to function is in effect not a person what about a fetus that has yet to form a brain? There is absolutely no brain activity in the first 8 weeks of pregnancy. That also happens to be when the vast majority of abortions take place.
Let's also look at the practical aspect. If you believe that abortion is murder in the same sense that a women who is five weeks pregnant goes down to her local women's clinic is morally the same as Susan Smith than you need to take it to its logical conclusion which is that roughly 33% of all women are murderers. That is correct. About 1 in 3 women have had an abortion at some point in their life. Some had it for financial reasons, some were pressured into it by a boyfriend or family member, some did it because they weren't ready for a child, some had it because they were raped, some had it for medical reasons, and did it because the didn't want to have children at all. There are a number of reasons a woman could choose to have an abortion. They range from petty to sensible to sympathetic, but it is ultimately her choice and the fact of the matter is that if you are in a room with several women, it is almost certain that at least one of them had an abortion and that includes if it is a church group or the Republican National Convention.
So what do we do with all these women who have had abortions? Merely from a practical standpoint. I would really like to know considering that so many pro-lifers consider abortion to be one of the greatest crimes in the history of the world.
"I oppose abortion except in cases of rape or incest"
Basically this argument states that you believe abortion is wrong and that it takes an innocent life although the presenter of this argument might not go as far as to call it murder. What this argument boils down to is that a fetus is undeserving of destruction unless one or both parents are horrible people.
"If you are pro-choice that means that you oppose criminal penalties for someone who injures a pregnant woman causing miscarriage"
Completely false. For practical purposes a fetus should be considered part of the mother's body and that means that if someone attacks the mother causing her to miscarry then it could treated the same if someone were to assault someone and cause them to lose an arm or an eye or be permanently disfigured. Believing that fetus is not a person is not the same thing as believing it should have no value to anyone.
"Many women who have abortions regret their decision"
While this is true for some women. Most don't. Most feel like they made the right decision in the long run even if it was a difficult decision to make. Most women under the seriousness of their decision and the consequences of both keeping it and aborting it.
"Pro-choice means pro-abortion"
Not necessarily. That is like saying pro-birth control is anti-birth. Being pro-choice doesn't mean that you think abortions are awesome (okay, I do, but I've got a lot of problems that I'm currently working on). You can support the right to choose even if you'd never make that choice yourself and might discourage others from making that choice.
I once read an article written by a gynecologist who although he wasn't an "abortion doctor" in the usual sense of the word, he occasionally did perform abortions. He admitted that he didn't like doing them and beforehand he would sit the woman down and get an idea of why she was getting it done and if she seemed uncertain or unsure he would tell her about her various options and give her some time to think. Sometimes they would come back and have an abortion because they were now completely certain of their decision and sometimes they would come back and ask him for prenatal advice having given it a second thought and decided that it wasn't the right choice for them. He said that he considered himself both pro-life and pro-choice. He understood that it a woman has the right to decide what she wants for her own body and he also felt uneasy about the potential ramifications of an abortion. He preferred to call his position "pro-choose life".
"Every zygote/blastocyst/embryo/fetus is sacred"
This argument states that since every fertilized egg or fetus has the potential to become a completely unique human being that their is an inherent sacredness in its existence that terminating it is the equivalent to the death of a person.
This is actually an interesting argument and is not without its merits on a philosophical basis, but on a practical basis it is not very useful.
For example, most fertilized eggs never take. That is why doctors utilizing in vitro fertilization use several fertilized eggs at a time because most will never take or will be rejected by the mother's body. That means with every single IVF treatment a woman could lose up to half a dozen or so fully unique human beings. That would mean that she had the equivalent of six or so miscarriages. Or if you want to be especially hyperbolic, her and her doctor just murdered several of her children. Remember that everyone knows going into this that not every fertilized egg will take, so even if this woman really wants children, she is still killing a couple of her own in order to make it happen.
I'm guessing most pro-lifers never considered that.
Seeing as how most fertilized eggs are rejected by the body. A lot of women have technically been pregnant without ever knowing it and will just write off a delayed period as "being late". Every women who is trying to get pregnant will undoubtedly have several "false starts" so to speak. Should that women view every single one of those as if she lost a child or at least as if she had a miscarriage?
Treating all pre-born humans as a person results in two viewpoints in practice. Either the emotional strain of know that you will lose a child if you are trying to get pregnant (even if you never know it) will take its toll on women and make them reluctant to even try knowing they are basically sentencing several children to death by merely trying to create another life or it results in the exact opposite point of view. Human life isn't all that sacred. IVF can result in several "children" dying at a time. Not every fertilized egg will take and that's another completely unique person gone right there. Any time a human life is created is has greater odds of not even making it past the microscopic stage anyways. So if each of those has the same value as a newborn baby or child the only options are to be completely overwhelmed with sheer brutality of it all or admit that human life isn't all that sacred and that most human life (which is completely equal to a person) leads to a completely pointless nihilistic existence that lasts not longer than a few hours or days.
My definition of life requires brain activity. If a fetus has brain activity, it should not be legal to abort it. Anything prior to that, I guess that's up to the people involved.
I deny that abortion is a women's issue however. It affects everyone. If a woman could get pregnant completely on her own, I'd say it's a women's issue, but men are still involved. Women obviously have the harder job, but the fetus is not exclusively hers.
A better solution to this issue is a better focus on sex education and access to birth control. If birth control is readily accessible and encouraged by society, unwanted pregnancy will logically go down. Sex education also needs to stop focusing on abstinence. That's not sex education anymore than telling somehow not to ski would be considered a form of skiing. Don't shame young people for having sex; make sure they understand how to have sex safely. This is crucial. Also, encourage girls to have condoms with them. A study in Denmark (I believe) showed that girls have condoms with them all the time, but in America, girls didn't because they were concerned boys would call them sluts (and they interviewed the boys and most said they would in fact consider a girl who carries her own birth control to be a ****). As I said, girls have the hard part when it comes to pregnancy, so there's no sensible reason that they shouldn't be the main purchaser of birth control.
Just my brief views on the issue. They line up fairly well (though I do firmly believe that abortion needs to be illegal once brain activity is detected in the fetus).
I deny that abortion is a women's issue however. It affects everyone. If a woman could get pregnant completely on her own, I'd say it's a women's issue, but men are still involved. Women obviously have the harder job, but the fetus is not exclusively hers.
I don't disagree with your points about birth control and education being important. I don't even disagree with this part in concept, but:
The pregnancy is happening inside the woman's body. It's her fertilized egg growing in her uterus. It will be her belly stretching out, her breasts lactating, her cervix dilating, and her giving birth (or undergoing a cesarean).
Because this is happening to her body, she should be the one who decides. That isn't to say the father's opinion doesn't matter at all, but if there's a disagreement, it's her decision, not his.
You can't force a person to use their body in a way they don't agree with. A woman has bodily autonomy, even through pregnancy.
You sanction murdering unborn babies. Just own it because all of what you wrote is BS.
Did you even read anything I wrote?
You want to compare me to someone supporting child murder? Be my guest, but at least have the decency and intellectual honesty to actually attack my arguments.
I don't believe in any invisible sky fairies. Fetii are not people, they're pinworms. I don't care what you think, you have no right to try to stop anyone from getting an abortion and in fact, with seven billion people already on the planet, abortion is GOOD for homo sapiens.
So, to summarize: abortion is good. I didn't ask to be born and given my parents, I wish they'd been sterilized at birth. Yes, yes, I know, there would be no me. Boo Hoo. Don't care. Human life is so utterly overrated, there are no words to fully express that.
Think what you like. I have lived my life on my terms and if you don't like that...bite me.
Justify it all you like. The glaring ugly hypocrisy of pro-abortion advocates is right in the mirror. There would be no argument or debate if your own mother aborted you in the womb. You were given life and have lived life. So you cannot decide for other human beings either when they get to live or not! You agree with this legalized murder, you are also one. And you're going to Hell if you do not repent.
Don't believe in hell..........try again. LOL
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