1. The right to life trumps every other right, since you can't have rights if you're dead.
2. Women often feel that they have no choice but to abort - where are their options? No one should feel that it is too difficult to have a baby.
3. No one can look at pictures or videos of abortions and not feel uncomfortable about the practice.
4. Life begins at conception - and personhood begins when life begins. Insisting otherwise simply imposes subjective ideas on the status of our fellow human beings.
5. Women who choose to go through with their pregnancy are looked down upon because they could have had it easier if they chose an abortion - like that's really being pro-choice.
6. Abortion survivors, and other children whose mothers wanted to abort them, should never feel like they shouldn't have been born.
7. Fathers have no control over the fate of their children if the mothers decide to "terminate" them, and that is not fair.
8. Abortions aren't the simple, painless medical procedures that some pro-choicers make them out to be.
9. Everyone deserves to have their chance at life protected - even those who are handicapped, unwanted, or inconvenient, and especially those who are helpless and voiceless.
10. Being pro-life is being pro-women - pregnancy is a natural, beautiful fact of life, and something only women can do! It is not a disease, and it doesn't need to be "cured". It is an amazing gift.
What are your reasons?
But the baby can't feel anything when it's being aborted. I am still pro- life, but I don't have good enough reasons to convince my friends to be pro- life. This helps a lot. Thank you and God bless you.
ReplyDeleteI assume you are referring to reason #7. When I wrote this, I actually had the mother in mind, as abortions are not "easy" procedures for the mother to go through - they are uncomfortable and often very painful, and can cause some medical side effects that can be as serious as death. And for many women, having an abortion is not an easy choice to make, and they live through much emotional turmoil afterwards. But I must point out that it is not always true that the baby does not feel anything when being aborted. For abortions as early as 20 weeks (though this is contested in the scientific community), the fetus is able to feel pain, and videos of abortions often show fetuses struggling to escape, writhing, and cringing. For more information you can Google "pain-capable abortion bills".
DeleteAlso, thank you for reading my blog ^_^ I am so glad I'm able to help you out! If you want more sophisticated arguments, you can click on "Abortion Arguments" above. All the best :) <3
DeleteVery excellent blog and you are a very good example for aspiring Catholics. May God be with you always in your journey. All I want to point out is to try to avoid the term "pro-choice". If we are pro-life then the opposite side is pro-death. The pro-death proponents have used a marketing ploy. "Improved", "New", "Fresh", "Choice" are some examples that makes the same things look better than their predecessors. Keep up the good work. There are millions behind you.
ReplyDeleteThank you SO much for your kind words! Also, on principle I agree that "choice" is a euphemism for "death", but I like to use the words that the other side chooses for themselves - after all, we want people to associate "pro-choice" and "abortion" with negative connotations (i.e.: with the death of a baby)!
DeleteI'm cofounder of a pro life ministry and just wanted to tell you how much we LOVE your blog. Keep fighting the good fight! Lori - AudioGirlMinistries.com
ReplyDeleteOmgosh thank you soooo much for your kind words! xox
DeleteI think your argument is very eloquent, but unfortunately I'm still pro-choice. I have some personal reasons, but I respect your points:)
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for taking the time to read my blog, though I must admit, this post is hardly the most eloquent one I have written (I wrote it early-on in my blogger-career)! lol For much better arguments (if you are still interested in learning about the pro-life perspective) I suggest you turn to abort73.com, secularprolife.org, feministsforlife.org (my FAVOURITE pro-life organization!) and (if you're looking at this issue from a Christian perspective) abolishhumanabortion.com. The Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform is also a great resource if you're from the Great White North!
DeleteThanks again :)
In addition to no. 3, who can watch someone give birth and not feel uncomfortable?
ReplyDeleteNice try.
DeleteWhere does your discomfort in watching a birth come from? Or in watching a surgery? For me it is from imagining going through it, knowing that it is painful and in general just not a fun experience.
The discomfort of looking at a tiny, mangled body that minutes before was alive and growing is a very different sort of discomfort.
The levels of discomfort are also quite different. How often do you hear of people being arrested because they show others what a birth looks like?
You know what?
ReplyDeleteWhat humanity needs is more parents.
What humanity doesn't need is more children starving to death.
What humanity doesn't need is more children dying from preventable and curable diseases.
What humanity doesn't need is more children being sold into human trafficking.
What humanity doesn't need is more children being beaten to death.
What humanity needs is children who live - not just survive.
Until every single child on this planet has a parent, the "pro-life"-movement will be nothing other than an elitist philosophy, where the compassion ends once the baby is born.
Living children should take precedence over the not-yet-living (the unborn). That's one of the many reasons why I can't sign under the so-called pro-life movement.
First of all, the unborn ARE alive. You are clinging to an outdated view that no pro-choice philosopher, academic, or abortionist holds. All educated players in the pro-choice movement agree that the unborn baby is alive. Traveling down a birth canal does not "magically" create a human being. The main issue in the abortion debate is whether the unborn are humans which deserve human rights. Most of the players in abortion philosophy and ethics claim that the unborn (and, in fact, all humans before the nebulous age of reason) do not deserve human rights. A smaller portion of academics believe that it does not matter whether the unborn has rights or not, because the woman has bodily autonomy. This belief has largely been defeated, and most philosophers and academics have abandoned this line of reasoning for the "human" vs. "person with rights" debate.
DeleteSecondly, I agree. Humanity does need more parents. It does not need more children starving to death, or more children being sold into human trafficking, or more children being beaten to death (and I would add, we do not need more children being poisoned, burned, decapitated, disemboweled, or torn limb-from-limb through abortion). Our world needs children who can live instead of survive, and we do not achieve such a world by killing some of our children. Just because there are born children who need our help and love, that does not mean that we cannot also offer help and love to unborn children and their mothers who are struggling to find a way to care for their children. This isn't an either-or issue, but a both-and. And just because this blog focuses on the issue of abortion, that does not mean that I and other pro-lifers do not also care about other issues that children face. I donate to charities that help children in war-torn countries, I work and volunteer with low-income children, I advocate against porn and human trafficking, I donate money to the homeless, pregnancy care centers offer help to low-income families and their children, and MANY pro-choice leaders have adopted more than one child.
Are we as a society doing enough to help those in need? Of course we are not. There is always more that can be done, and there is always more that I can do. I do not deny this. But as I said, we do not need to choose between the unborn and the born. We can help both.
And again, I cannot stress enough how very wrong you are with regards to the unborn not being alive yet.
I'm assuming you are for cheap and easy access to birth control for all teens and women since that has been proven to lower abortion rates? And for all women to have access to free/low cost housing, food, and transportation since that would assist in poor women being able to keep their children? And for all business being required to provide really good maternity care? And poor women having daycares subsidized so that they can afford to put their child in a quality childcare while they work? These are ways to either prevent unwanted pregnancies or make poor not feel pressured to end pregnancies. Do you support them and if not, why?
ReplyDeleteAs much as you go on about pregnancy being this wonderful thing, it can be horrible. Horrible beyond words. Vomiting for months until your teeth are ruined and you need a picc line installed so you don't get dehydrated. These things cost money, so I assume you are for universal health care so that women who face these things don't feel pressured to have an abortion because they can't afford medical care. And that doesn't even factor in that C-sections can take years to recover from and some birth issues can cause life long problems.
So what is your suggestion for women who accidently get pregnant and don't want to face those thing? Their quality of life is less important than the fetus they are carrying? What would you say to a poor single mother who cannot care for the child she has because the current pregnancy is making her so sick and she is getting ready to lose her job because she is so sick? An abortion would solve her problems? How would you convince her to not have an abortion? Going with pregnancy is natural, beautiful and a gift isn't going to work here.
"I'm assuming you are for cheap and easy access to birth control for all teens and women since that has been proven to lower abortion rates?"
DeleteI have no real opinion on birth control access, but it has not been conclusively proven that access to birth control lowers the abortion rates (there have been some interesting debates on this issue in the blogosphere, and from what I can tell the references used are sound so I suggest you check it out!) Access to birth control, however, does not solve the abortion problem from a pro-life perspective, since there will always be a failure rate (there is no perfect contraception) and therefore there will likely be abortions. It is not enough to lower the abortion rate, while the general population still believes that it is perfectly fine to kill their unwanted children while they are still in the womb. Abortion kills an innocent human being, and should never be acceptable - whether birth control is available or not is very much a secondary issue. I hope I have explained my stance properly, if you need clarification, just ask!
"And for all women to have access to free/low cost housing, food, and transportation since that would assist in poor women being able to keep their children?"
Um, of course! One thing that pregnancy care centers do is help connect women to affordable resources (housing, food, healthcare, childcare, etc), and it would be great to see these things become more widely available, especially in university settings where pregnant women typically get little, if any, help at all. I suggest you check out Feminists for Life, they do a lot of great advocacy and educational work on this issue.
"And for all business being required to provide really good maternity care?"
Of course! This is so crucial.
"And poor women having daycares subsidized so that they can afford to put their child in a quality childcare while they work?"
Of course as well. Quebec seems to be moving in this direction, if I recall correctly, though I cannot recall the policies in the rest of Canada.
And again, there are many pregnancy care centers which help women find access to childcare and healthcare, though of course if the government and businesses could become more involved in helping pregnant women that would be a really amazing thing (that does not mean that there aren't businesses that do just that - I've worked at some amazing places that had in-house daycares and nurses specifically for the children of their employees).
[This is the second half of my response - I had to post it in two]
DeleteAnd of course, pregnancy can be a horrible ordeal. Just because something is beautiful, that does not mean that it is not difficult. Though your words to reveal that you seem to regard the fetus as someone who is less than human (i.e.: not a person). Pro-lifers do not view the fetus that way - we view them as people with equal dignity and rights as the mother. So with that assumption, let us examine this issue.
In all pregnancies, the mother does not "accidentally" become pregnant. There are two possibilities. In one case, she voluntarily has sex, and therefore she voluntarily risks creating a dependent human being. In the other case, she is forced into pregnancy by a rapist. In the first case, pro-choice academics and ethicists agree that the mother and father owe the dependent human being they helped create compensation - i.e.: care until such time as they can transfer the new human to someone who is willing to care for him or her. This is why academic ethics journals focus on the status of the unborn as a person rather than on the bodily rights of the mother. In the second case, the woman did not voluntarily engage in an act which could create a dependent human being, and so owes her child nothing (though there have been some developments in pro-life circles which attempt to deal with this - I suggest looking into Josh Brahm at Life Report for more information).
Either way, whether or not pregnancy is "easy", "beautiful", or "hard" does not deal with the central question - does the mother owe her child anything? If she voluntarily had sex, then the pro-life and pro-choice stance (providing that the unborn child is a person) is yes, she does. Again, this is why the unborn are denied personhood - if they do not have a right to life, then it doesn't matter if the woman purposely risked creating them, the mother owes her child nothing since her child does not have a right to life.
As for your last question - how would I convince someone who is sick and about to lose her job to not have an abortion? Well, I would direct her to a pregnancy care center, where they could offer her money, food, baby supplies, and legal aid. If they could not help her, than I would offer her a place in my home and my food and my resources until such a time as she is able to take care of herself and her child. I would also hazard to guess that firing a woman because of pregnancy issues is illegal (at least in Canada), and she could probably sue her employer for compensation.
In any case, these are specific issues that can be dealt with through monetary aid, legal aid, and healthcare - abortion does not have to be an option here as there are other courses of action that can be taken.
While I agree with many points on your list (esp. 2, 5, 7), I still have some objections.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that that the baby is alive, but a woman nevertheless has the right to choose whether she wants another person living inside her body for an extended period of time. A major misunderstanding is that babies are compared to the disabled or the elderly: all three groups are people with a right to live, and they depend on others to keep living, but only babies have a status in which they depend on living inside someone else. Nobody can be forced to give resources to another person in this way. An unborn child is not the same as a disabled person!
It is actually very similar to donating (blood or organs): while it may be the more moral choice to donate blood or organs so that others can live, it is perfectly ok to deny this, resulting in the death of the person in need. We cannot take away people's right to determine what happens with their own body. If we were to be genuinely pro-life, we would not only have to rule out abortion, but also force people to become blood donors as well as organ donors - living people would have to give up a kidney if they match with an ill person. Everybody would have to donate after death. that would be genuinely pro-life, but that wouldn't make it right or more moral - it is actually quite a scary scenario to consider losing bodily autonomy like that! And in case of objections: donating blood causes no damage to the body. donating a kidney is entirely unproblematic for healthy people. A pregnancy is usually not dangerous, but like with the other two, there might be complications which can severely damage your health for life.
In the same way, it is only logical that a father has no right to make decisions here. After all, it is not about his bodily autonomy. He has no right to demand something happen to another person's body.
Either way, while I myself am individually pro-life (as in, abortion is not an option for me personally), I still understand that an unwanted pregnancy violates bodily autonomy in the view of other individuals. At the end of the day, we are not in anybody else's shoes. Being pro-choice doesn't mean being pro-killing. It means making an informed decision and figuring out an acceptable solution. Sometimes, sadly, this solution is the termination of a pregnancy.
I do realize that being pro-choice means making an informed decision about a pregnancy - but we need to remember what that decisions entails: the dismemberment, disembowelment, decapitation, poisoning, or burning of an innocent human being. It is not quite the same thing as denying someone a blood transfusion because you do not want to get a needle.
DeleteThat being said, as I explained above, the bodily autonomy argument only works well in cases of rape, since in this case the woman has truly lost control of her situation and so is not responsible for the creation of her son or daughter. In all other cases, the woman and man voluntarily engaged in an act which could create a child - a child which they then decide to kill. That is not fair, and pro-lifers and many pro-choicers argue that the mother owes her child compensation in the form of basic care until the child can be transferred to someone who wants to care for him or her. As I explained in a comment above, this is why the unborn are not considered "persons with rights" in pro-choice academic circles. There are lots of great academic papers and books which go into depth on this issue, I really suggest you look into this because it is such a crucial question to get right - lives literally hang in the balance.
God is pro-choice.
ReplyDeleteYou might as well say that God is pro-murder, since everyone dies. This is basically a ridiculous statement, without a point, that will convince no one of anything.
Delete