Why I Am Pro-Choice
As a male, whether to have an abortion is a decision that I will never be faced with. It is also a decision that I would hope no one would be faced with.
We do have to recognize that a pregnancy is not trivial. A pregnancy that is not terminated will lead to the birth of a human being. There are indeed moral issues involved in deciding whether to have an abortion. However, a fetus is entirely dependant on the woman carrying it and is virtually a part of her body. I do not believe that I, or society, have a right to take control of a woman’s body and force her to continue a pregnancy that she does not wish to.
That is sufficient enough reason for me to be Pro-Choice, but that is not the only reason I am Pro-Choice. As I said, I hope no one would be faced with the decision as to whether to have an abortion. The so-called “Pro-Life” movement way of dealing with it would eliminate women’s need to make that decision by making it for them. I would prefer to deal with it by supporting measures that prevent the need for the decision to be made, measures such as sex education and birth control that the so-called “Pro-Life” movement opposes. If one wants to reduce the number of abortions it only makes sense to support a movement that supports measures that will do that rather than to support a movement that opposes them.
The other reason I oppose the so-called “Pro-Life” movement is because of it’s horrible tactics, negativity and heartlessness. There is nothing more disgusting to me than to put up signs beside a medical clinic run by a holocaust survivor calling it “Canada’s Auschwitz”. Just as disgusting are the tactics of trying to pass off photographs and videos of late term abortions as being typical of the procedure and screaming “please don’t kill your baby” at women who are facing the most difficult decision of their life and calling it “counseling”. How could any caring person be on the same side as these people.
What women facing this decision need is speedy access to counseling and medical help so the decision can be made early in the pregnancy. They need access to information on all the options from carrying and raising a child, to adoption, as well as abortion. We need to provide real counseling options to help women make the right decision for themselves. Screaming at them and trying to take their right to decide away from them is simply unacceptable in a civilized society
5 comments:
Your comments illustrate typical pro-abort myopia.
Anyone who understands law and policy understands that all laws force someone's morality on someone else. Laws force fathers to pay for child support even if they don't want their child. Laws prevent women from putting certain drugs into their bodies or prevents them from putting as much alcohol as they want into their bodies and then driving. The right to control one's own body is not absolute.
Often, that right ends when another human being is involved - and that's the one point you don't even deal with.
Yes, the unborn are dependent on their mothers to live; so are newborns -- so what? Conjoined twins or groups of disabled people are also dependent on others to live. How does dependency change what they are biologically?
Human reproduction is called sexual reproduction because scientifically, human life begins at fertilization. That's not a religious view - that's just science.
Calling pro-lifers names or somehow suggesting we are mean and evil people (even if true), does not prove that our arguments are false. Ad hominems don't prove your argument.
And yes, when I lived in Ottawa and worked with most of the pro-life groups in the city, some of us did use graphic images to illustrate abortion. Interestingly, you fail to give any reason why we shouldn't believe the truthfulness of these pictures. You fail to mention that in Canada, there is no law against abortion at any stage in pregnancy and that Canadian taxpayers do pay for late-term abortions performed on Canadians in the US (National Post 2005).
In other words, the pictures are indicative of at least some abortions that occur because of Canada's lack of a law.
BTW, our group, www.unmaskingchoice.ca, uses images of early-term abortions just so that people can see that abortion is wrong at any stage.
Facts don't support your position and before blogging on something as important as this, it is important to actually deal with the evidence.
You state your opinion, "...virtually a part of her body".
It is NOT a part of her. It's an independent soul being created within her womb, a product of both the man and woman.
When she decided to go to bed with him, she had to take responsibility for her passion, just like the man should have taken the act responsibly. If she made a mistake, then she must live with it. But to rationalize that it's her body part, and therefore she can dismember herself, is a rational lie.
If you think that abortion is not a murder, and therefore many abortions do not amount to a mass of killings, then you do not appreciate the responsibility that comes with making a decision to have sex. To you apparently the fun aspect of it is what drives your rationality. But having fun irresponsibly, by creating and killing a viable seedling - is absolutely inappropriate behavior. We must take account of our actions. If we made a mistake, we cannot fix it by killing the embryo, to-be-fetus, to-be infant, to-be human being.
The idea behind the pro-life movement is that unborn children are equal human beings. It's actually a human rights movement.
I am interested in reducing the number of abortions, but I am even more interested in the state and the culture acknowledging unborn children as equal human beings.
Large numbers of pro-lifers (though by no means all) oppose widespread use of contraception because its cultural acceptance has only led to more abortion. The more you push contraception, the more you push sexual activity on a collective scale. The more you push sexual activity, the more pregnancies you're going to have, because contraception isn't perfect. Abortion is a back-up for contraception. Instead of promoting the very thing for which abortion is a back-up, it's better to promote abstinence and a culture of life, that is a life where every child is wanted by virtue of its existence in the womb.
I don't think pro-lifers try to pass of late-term abortions as typical, but they do happen in Canada-- there are hundreds every year. Many people think that late-term abortions are not legal in Canada and that no one does them.
"Human reproduction is called sexual reproduction because scientifically, human life begins at fertilization. That's not a religious view - that's just science."
It would help a lot if you actually knew what "sexual reproduction" really means, scientifically speaking.
It has nothing to do with when life begins. It has everything to do with the biological elements necessary to make it happen. Many flowers and trees also use sexual reproduction. Other use a method called asexual reproduction. In animals, it's also called parthenogenesis.
It's called biology. Look it up.
There are so many distortions and outright lies in comments #1-3 from anti-choicers -- why wouldn't you call them out?
You caved. You can never cave with these people, you're sadly mistaken if you think they're looking for compromise.
Post a Comment