Are you Pro-Life or Pro-Choice?

Are you Pro-Life or Pro-Choice?

28 answers , last was 10 years ago

Please give good reason behind your choice and not the everyday cliche answers

Asked by Jeff Henning in Current Events & Politics at 2:39pm on February 17th, 2008
Paula Thompson 1502
Answered at 6:01pm on November 28th, 2013
I am pro-life because I know life begins at conception.
John Supp 2272
Answered at 5:18pm on April 4th, 2008
I've heard all the arguments for and against, and I just want to state some facts and questions. First, an unborn child has a unique genetic code, which makes the kid a unique human being, not a part of his mother's body He or she should have the same human rights as anyone else. Now, what are the differences between an unborn child, and a newborn child? Size? Dependence? Intelligence? Environment? Are dwarves less human than the rest of us? Are the old, infirm, mentally retarded less human than the rest of us? Are the intellectuals somehow superior to the rest of humanity? Does the place you live or your stage in life effect your humanity? Hitler thought so. Now, I'm not trying to directly compare pro-choice people to Hitler. But really, what is it about a unique human child that makes them a disposable liability at the whim of the mother a few minutes before they would be legally and socially considered a human being? Someone answer that.
Bennett Welch 2327
Answered at 12:31am on April 1st, 2008
"And thats saying something because I normally dont respect pro-lifers as they are mainly close-minded and not open to other opinions but I guess there are always a few decent people out there"

I just thought this was a great quote. After reading all of your responses, I think it really paints a nice picture of who you are. I think its cool that if I tell you I'm pro-life, that before you even know me, you don't respect me. I guess I can see how you don't respect the life of children, unborn children in particular.
Jerome Tomaselli 2286
Answered at 6:08pm on March 31st, 2008
You must be looking to stir things up around here judging by this and your other questions.

Pro-Choice . It seems to me that taking away someones right to choose will lead to lots of other things that someone doesnt want you to be allowed to do, and then there go our rights and freedoms. I'm not talking about robbing a liquor store, I'm talking about being allowed to choose what you do with your own body.

A woman should have the right to choose what to do and have the facilities available to safely have an abortion.
David Souza 2399 Brainpower Score
Answered at 11:38am on March 4th, 2008
I have to say I am pro-life but I do believe abortion is acceptable in some cases.

This is a question that debates life itself. Many believe the fetus is not living, others disagree. I don't like to dwell in arguments that cannot be proven either way. At the risk of killing an innocent human being I'd say I'm pro-life. At the same time you have to absolutely take into account the one who is holding that life into the equation. In that respect, if the unborn child poses a threat to the woman who is bearing it then yes, abortion is something I'd feel comfortable with. I wanted to mention also that in this day and age there are so many alternative methods of birth control that using abortion as one would be irresponsible.

I do like your questions... there is always room for debate.
Jessie St Amand 2400
Answered at 1:22pm on March 2nd, 2008
Pro-choice.

Being forced to sustain another human's life with the chemicals from your own body is a particularly horrendous sort of torture for the people who don't want to do it. Countries which have the legal option of birth control and abortion on demand are associated with decrease in poverty and increase in life expectancy. It gives women the freedom to decide if, when, where, and with whom they are ready to have children.

Also, the pro-lifers want to instate a "personhood at conception" amendment which would guarantee the rights citizenship to fertilized egg cells. That's ludicrous. How do you enforce such an amendment? Suddenly you have to have police investigations and due process in order to bring to justice to the "deaths" of every Zygote-American. Every tampon could be a crime scene! Every fall could be manslaughter! Every drink taken with the thought of "Geez, how many weeks has it been?" could be assault and battery! Do you have to sterilize repeat offenders because they could be pregnant-with-intention-to-abort at any moment? Such an amendment treats women like potential baby incubators instead of autonomous people. The choice to have sex is not the choice to have a baby.

I'm not too worried about the "personhood" of zygotes/embryos/fetuses either. Until they have brain functions complex enough to feel fear, loss, happiness, or attachment, they're less human and less intelligent than the average Labrador Retriever. It's not a question of whether they have souls. The concept of a soul is totally unfounded on evidence and totally in violation of separation of church and state when you consider abortion legislation.
Chaitanya Raja 1327
Answered at 4:28am on February 27th, 2008
pro-choice - Its the woman's decision. If not for anything else, its her body, her pain and her choice.

I would have gone with pro-choice until say 6 months into the pregnancy and then pro-life there on, but then how different is 6 months and one day to 6 months and who is to define when the baby is a life in itself? I for one, sure cannot see the difference.
John Burd 1224
Answered at 1:16pm on February 25th, 2008
Thank you. I enjoyed it.
Laura Smith 2366
Answered at 2:55am on February 25th, 2008
I'm pro "doing what you have to do in a situation" that may be either choice.... I don't think a person who has not been in that situation can make the claim that they are pro this or pro that.
John Burd 1224
Answered at 12:38am on February 25th, 2008
First, thank you. It is a pleasure to debate with such a worthy opponent.

I agree with the foundation on which you build your argument: The fetus is entirely, completely dependent on his/her mother as it lives, grows, and eats. I cannot agree with the conclusion your argument comes to, however. You state that “a fetus is ‘less than’ a human being… as it depends only on others to survive.” Put another way, it seems that the criterion by which you judge whether or not someone is human is this: do they depend only on others to survive? If this is, in fact, the criterion on which you are basing humanity, then I don’t understand why a fetus is a non-person, while a newborn is a person. A newborn, too, depends only on others to survive. Granted, a newborn is no longer contained within his/her mother’s womb. But that does not change this fact: A newborn is completely, entirely dependent on others. Left alone, a baby might last a couple days before he or she died of malnutrition, dehydration, exposure, what have you.

You state that the elderly, disabled, etc., are not less human. But the reason you’ve given for that position is essentially this: “The elderly are not less human because they are not. That is a completely different thing.” My question, then, is, Why is it a completely different thing?

As for the elastic argument: I wasn’t arguing (or at least I was not trying to argue) that the laws themselves are elastic. I was simply pointing out that the argument you had employed against restrictions on abortion could be similarly employed against any law.

It is true that everyone has a choice whether or not to obey any law, and that there are consequences for making the choice not to obey. It is similarly true that no law enjoys 100% compliance.

Here is why I don’t think those facts are persuasive arguments against laws restricting abortion: While it is clear that no law is obeyed 100% of the time, it is equally clear that, speaking generally, a law prohibiting a practice will tend to reduce that practice. So, while I’ll grant that abortion would not disappear if it was outlawed, I’m not convinced that outlawing abortion would have no effect whatsoever on the number of abortions.

I’m equally willing to agree with the contention that, should abortion become illegal, abortions in general would become more dangerous for women. Here is why I don’t find that a persuasive argument: The pro-life side of the debate equates fetal life with the life of the mother. No matter how “safe” abortion is made, it is fatal to one of the parties involved. To me, it’s similar to arguing that women should have the right to take their two-year-old to a doctor’s office and have them put to sleep, and if we make that illegal, women who want their two-year-olds gone will have to do it themselves or hire someone who might botch the job. The reason I see it as similar is because I see a fetus as being just as human as a two-year-old. Which brings us back around to the first debate: Is a fetus “less than” a human person?

As to the dependence point, it’s really only a tangential argument – certainly not one I would wish to base the entire debate upon. But it’s worth noting that, while we may not be dependent on any one cashier to sell us the food we require, we nevertheless depend on finding someone who will. In that sense, I think, we remain dependent.

You make an interesting point when you ask whether a doctor who refuses an abortion breaks the interdependence chain on which we all rely. Granted, women do rely on doctors to perform abortions that they cannot perform themselves. But I would question whether they have a right to that reliance. A man may rely on a prostitute for certain things, but if the prostitute refuses him “service” because of laws against prostitution, I don’t believe society has an interest in providing him redress. Interesting thought, though.

I’ll agree that independence is one of the essential freedoms that our country has always sought to protect. But it is not the only freedom, and sometimes one freedom must yield to make way for another, greater freedom. In this case, pro-life people believe that an unborn child’s freedom to live without his/her life being taken outweighs a woman’s interest in freedom from pregnancy. Something I think the pro-life side of the debate fails to acknowledge as often as it should is the grave impingement on a woman’s freedom when she is required to carry a pregnancy against her will. This is, without a doubt, the factor that makes abortion such a difficult issue. Ultimately, people like myself believe that, while laws restricting abortion may be a radical limitation on women’s freedom, that limitation is justified and made necessary by society’s interest in protecting human life.

Finally, as to those pro-life persons who favor permitting abortions in cases of rape and incest, I guess they’re just trying to make exceptions for women who did not, by their own consenting behavior, put themselves in a situation in which they could become pregnant. The argument seems to be that women should not have to live with the consequences of acts over which they had no control. Ultimately, however, this strikes me as inconsistent with recognition of fetal life as human life: If a fetus is a person, it doesn’t matter how or why he/she came into being. We don’t draw those distinctions after birth, and a recognition of basic human rights indicates that we shouldn’t draw them before.
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