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First, this isn't about my personal feelings on abortion. What I'm trying to understand is people who seem to straddle both sides of the fence. Is it even possible to have a coherent middle road on this issue?
Examples of a middle of the road viewpoint:
Prochoice, but want to ban abortion based on sex selection
Prochoice, but get angry at people who have multiple abortions or are perceived to be using it for 'birth control'
Anti-abortion, but make exceptions for victims of rape and incest
There seems to be no logic in these viewpoints. I can understand both extremes, but not this semi-choice logic.
To be pro-choice, it would seem to require a belief that a fetus is just tissue. Aborting it is simply a medical procedure, not a death, and so trying to set limits of any kind on it seems illogical. Why does it matter if the mother aborts because she wanted a girl and the fetus is male? It's just tissue. Or why should it matter if that's the only form of birth control a woman ever uses?
To be anti-abortion, it seems to require a belief that the fetus is a child and aborting that fetus is the same as a death. In which case, victims of rape and incest shouldn't be an exception...the baby didn't cause it. We don't punish innocent people as the result of any other crime.
So I can understand these extremes because they carry through fully. But with the middle of the road, it seems like a fetus is a fetus except when we don't like the morals of the mother, in which case it becomes a baby. Or a baby is a baby, except when something awful and tragic happens to the mother, in which case the baby becomes a fetus.
But it seems like more people are middle-of-the-road than truly on the far extreme. Is there a way to morally and coherently hold this viewpoint?
It's actually where most people live but they need a lable to feel good about themselves. The terms "prolife" and "prochoice" are meaningless by themselves.
Let everyone have their own view. But don't force that view on others.
Except for the Hyde Amendment allowances, let everyone pay for their own abortion.
So I can understand these extremes because they carry through fully. But with the middle of the road, it seems like a fetus is a fetus except when we don't like the morals of the mother, in which case it becomes a baby. Or a baby is a baby, except when something awful and tragic happens to the mother, in which case the baby becomes a fetus.
Well said.
I've never understood this logical disconnect myself. It's either alive or it's not. Period. I am pro choice but I am often disgusted with the typical pro-choicer's logic, as well as the typical pro-lifer's hypocrisy.
Let everyone have their own view. But don't force that view on others.
Except for the Hyde Amendment allowances, let everyone pay for their own abortion.
Obama is not 'straddling the fence' on abortion. He is still for late term abortion and today, would not denounce gender selection abortions.
He is "for" late term abortion? He likes them and advocates them because they are jolly good fun? Or he realizes he isn't a medical professional and thinks they should be the ones who make these difficult calls? I see a difference but I'm not sure you do.
You know, I think most reasonable people "straddle the middle."
Most people don't really think that serial abortions are a good thing.
Most people don't think that abortion as a means of birth control is a good thing.
Most people don't think that a 12 year-old rape victim should be forced to bear a child.
Most people don't think that a woman should be forced to bear a child when it is clear that doing so will kill her.
It's the people who take an all-or-nothing stance that are usually the problem. Like just about any extremist.
But can you explain to me how you can hold both thoughts in your head at one time? How can you think "it's okay to kill a fetus...except in x,y, and x circumstances'
Basically, this says to me that on some level you (general you) DOES think the fetus is a baby. And you're therefore saying that it is moral to kill a baby in some circumstances and immoral to kill the same baby in other circumstances. That's what I don't understand.
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