Abortion

[andrewducker]

I say that I'm pro-choice, but the truth is that I'm actually anti-abortion. Rather, I'm pro-making sure that women have the resources and education available so that there's no need for abortions save those performed for medical reasons. The best way to stop abortions is to stop the need for abortions -- not with abstinence education that tells girls they're naughty for getting knocked up but doesn't tell them how to prevent it, but with realistic sex education and more resources for young women who find themselves pregnant and unable to afford prenatal care and postnatal expenses of raising a child

Which pretty much sums up how I feel.

Stolen from the ever-vigilant Lady Sysiphus.

Comments

[andrewducker]

I probably am, a bit. But recent studies have shown that foetuses pay attention to their environment, cry and respon to stimuli from quite an early age. If the difference between a foetus and a baby is something to do with the {whatever} itself then I think that the developmental changes in it are much more important than whether it's inside a person.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

I think that is because you can't get pregnant. ;-)

[andrewducker]

I also can't be a foetus.

And I don't want to have kids, ever.

Out of interest, how does aj's suggestion here strike you?

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

As a solution that could end up looking like Nicolae Ceaucescu's Romania (http://eileen.undonet.com/Main/7_R_Eile/Romania.htm). It's not a new idea. I think it's an example of how far some people will struggle to refuse to accept that a woman does and should have a right to choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

[andrewducker]

Or possibly (and this is merely a suggestion and I know it seems remarkably unlikely) they _disagree_ with you.

I know, I know. But in an infinite universe, anthing's possible.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Andrew, are you seriously saying you think that in the whole infinite universe I'm the only person in it who believes in a woman's right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy? And that anyone who advocates anything else is therefore disagreeing with me?

Even I don't see myself as that central to the universe.

Like it or not, a woman's right to choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is one of those basic feminist ideas. It showed up as one of the Seven Demands back in the 1970s: it marked a clear need that a lot of feminists got behind in the 1960s in the fight for legal abortions: it's been around as part of feminism for decades. It's not just my own personal quirk.

[andrewducker]

I wasn't saying that the entire world disagreed with you. I was saying that just because someone has made a suggestion it doesn't mean that they are somehow saying women have no rights over their bodies.

You said "I think it's an example of how far some people will struggle to refuse to accept that a woman does and should have a right to choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy."

And my reply was supposed to indicate that they weren't trying to worm around some kind of absolute right, they were simply disagreeing that it _was_ an absolute right.

(and it's not, in this country, late-term abortions aren't nearly as easy to come by as early-term abortions)

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

And my reply was supposed to indicate that they weren't trying to worm around some kind of absolute right, they were simply disagreeing that it _was_ an absolute right.

Actually, it seemed to me that they were thinking up methods by which even more unwanted foetuses could be brought to term. Hence my reference to Nicolae Ceausescu.