BlogHer - Why I'm Pro-Choice - Comments

Keep the conversation going

Maria Niles — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 01:05:58 -0600

You've very welcome for the post and though you sound as if you were perfectly eloquent in your conversation I hope you can use this as a springboard for ongoing conversation with your son. He sounds like a good man and someone you raised well.

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Perfect timing for me-

WillaMJ — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:27:50 -0600

My twenty-something son and I were taking a walk this afternoon, pushing his 6 month old daughter- my first grandchild- in her stroller. He turned to me and said- "You know, mom, this has made me change my stance- I have become pro-life." I told him- "It does change everything, I understand that. After you were born, my feelings about whether or not I personally could have an abortion changed. But I strongly feel we do not have the right to make choices for other women. Hate abortion-No one likes abortions, I have never known a woman who choose one easily. Instead, work so that no one ever has to make the choice to have one. I want to live in a world where abortion is available, and no-one ever chooses to have one."

I was far less eloquent than you, probably even less eloquent than I sound in this comment! I wish I had remembered to say to him, "be anti-abortion, not anti-choice." More to the point, I wish I had the text of your post to share with him then. Thanks for this.

Willa

http://bones-would-rain.blogspot.com http://palocalvore.blogspot.com
http://yumminessnsues.blogspot.com

whew!

ebradley — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:13:34 -0600

you are very, very intelligent. it's actually impressive how well written you are. so, before we get into a 20 paragraph text war, please know that i don't mean to offend or accuse. i'm honestly just very passionate about the issue. i also am completely open to hearing why you are, though it's pretty much all right there in your blog! anyway, at the risk of being too wordy and losing your attention, let's agree to be friendly in our discussion for the sake of learning something. please let's also check the sarcasm at the subject line...there's no need. besides, it loses it's meaning in "text" anyway...

have you ever seen and actual abortion video? even at 8 weeks it's brutal. (i'll assume you have) it's bloody, it's disturbing and even for the pro-choice, it's uncomfortable to see. since you're better than i at explaining your passion, help me to understand how the evidence of an actual abortion, either by photos or video is justifiable for absolutely any reason. it's nothing less than slaughter. can you disagree with that? it goes beyond being ready to have a baby. beyond finances. beyond convenience. beyond putting "rights on a woman's body". it's ripping apart flesh, crushing bones, burning insides. how can we look away? how is it that the arguement is about rebellion? it seems to me that we look away from the horror that it is and justify it by saying the slaying of a life is worth protecting my "rights".

The poor logic of the pro life

Poobah — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:02:56 -0600

Pro-Life, Pro-Choice & the Meaning of Words

How words and language is used shapes the outcome of a
logical argument.
To get to a logically consistent, and intellectually
honest conclusion, one must use words that have a clear and
unambiguous meaning.
Often lawmakers do not do this. Hence we have very bad
laws that defy logic and common sense, and as a result to a great
deal of harm to individuals and to society as a whole. The only
people benefiting from these laws are prejudiced individuals who
are immune to logic. For example, most drug laws, and almost all
laws pertaining to marijuana are of this type. A more recent
example of the destructive use of language --- calling something
by a different name --- is Credit Default Swaps. These were a
form of insurance. In this case the financial institutions
instead of saying that X is B, said said that X is NOT B. By
calling something that was insurance by a different name, NOT
insurance, they managed to avoid appropriate regulation, and to
eventually create the economic mess in which we find ourselves.
Any definition that includes within itself the use of the
word that it is defining, is automatically suspect, and probably
invalid. There are many ways of defining a vegetable for example,
but you will seldom if ever see a vegetable defined as something
that comes from or is a vegetable
When it comes to human, on the other hand, that concept is
--- well complicated ---. It seems that all definitions contain
the word human, or some synonym such as people. That is, it is
not trivially easy to find a meaningful definition. Here is one
such definition from Kenneth Burke:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_man.
I am sure that there are others.
When defining a human without using the term human in the
definition one is always defining an adult human. Any other
definition would be unable to distinguish a very young child from
a pathologically hairless primate.
Historically, any definition that does not use the word
human as part of the definition will not define a child except as
some sort of potential human. In fact, historically, the killing
of a child was a crime of property since children and women were
in fact property, not equivalent to any form of homicide.

The point of the above is to point out what is far from
obvious. That is, that without a circular definition, or the kind
of legal fictions in which our representatives, acting as self
ordained gods indulge, one can not logically say that a fetus or a
child is the same thing as a fully realized human being. I used
the term god in the sense that the bible does when referring to an
entity that creates reality by the power of the word. It is
unfortunate that our “public servants” often see themselves as
some form of god, able to define reality by the power of their
written word.

Many who are pro-life cite the laws that state that if a man
harms a woman in such a way as to cause here to abort her fetus,
then he is guilty of a form of homicide. They then go on to claim
that it is a hypocrisy to then allow the woman to terminate the
pregnancy. This line of reasoning is false for the following:

In order to object to dying beyond a very pr imitative
reflexive level exhibited by almost reproducing systems, such a
system must have a concept of death. Any human not yet a capable
of language has no such concept and thus can not object.
The reason that we have laws pertaining to homicide is the
assumption that nobody wants to die. But this presumes an entity
capable of wanting and objecting to dying, either now or sometime
in the future.
The question: Would objected to being aborted? is not
really a question of the same sort as, would have objected to
being killed last week. Many people can make a coherent argument
about the lack of meaning of the first, and yet almost everybody
will say that, yes they would have objected to being killed last
week.
Laws, to have meaning, have to relate to parties who have
an interest in the situation. That is why many lawsuits are
dismissed because the people involved have no standing.
An entity that does not have a comprehension of death can
not have standing in relative law. Person A, can object to a
stranger being killed, because the person doing the killing, may
later kill person A. Laws against all forms of homicide are
relevant to all people who can feel threatened by that. However,
in the case of a mother and fetus, the only entity with standing
is the mother. In a similar manner, a person with severe
neurological deficits and indicating little if any brain activity
has no standing, though his/her family does.
Because of this, it is not logically inconsistent to have
a law that says that it is homicide to cause the termination of a
pregnancy against the mothers will since she is the only one with
standing in the case.

In fact, in reality, a person or what we normally call a human
is NOT a child, and neither one is a fetus. As a society we may or
may not give them the same or similar rights or responsibilities.
Indeed, in different states, the offspring of humans indeed have
rights and responsibilities that vary from state to state for a
given age. But let me restate. When we refer to humans, we are
seldom referring to children or to fetuses. Likewise, when we
refer to children or fetuses, we are NOT referring to humans but
to potential humans.

In addition to the above logic we know the following:

The nature of the adult at age, say 21, indeed even its vary
existence depends on many things. While people who claim to be
pro-life attribute some sort of specialness or sacredness to a
fertilized egg, any basic search will turn up the fact that the
rate of spontaneous abortions, AFTER pregnancy is confirmed,
varies from 12 to 20 percent. Various estimates of spontaneous
abortions that occur before pregnancy is confirmed range up to
twice that. That is, nature concludes that 20% or more of
fertilized eggs are not in any way viable and thus implantation
does not take place, or if it does, it does not last for more than
a couple of weeks.

The point of all of this is to offer clear and convincing
evidence that a fertilized egg is NOT a human. It is, at most a
blueprint for what might, under the right circumstances, with a
little bit of luck, become a human being. Often, 10 to twenty
percent of the time in fact, the fertilized egg does not become a
human but is expelled by the body. Sometimes the badness of the
fertilized egg is not recognized, and what develops is some entity
that will not survive after birth, or if it does survive, will
require very expensive lifelong care.

And here is a good time to note the degree to which those who
torture language by calling a fertilized egg a human, torture it
more by saying that “God does not make mistakes” If a
fertilized egg that is rejected by the mother, or a blob of flesh
without a brain or is in some other way can not survive outside of
the mother is not a mistake, then exactly what is a mistake?

A person can call a fertilized a human on the grounds that it
comes from a human. But lots of things come from humans that are
not human. And of course calling something human because it comes
from a human is a circular definition, which we noted above is a
logical fallacy similar to circular reasoning.

In conclusion, those who put forth the argument of right to
life have no logic, no facts, no biblical scholarship* no biology
and no compassion on their side. They simply want what they want
and are willing to use the power of the state, which includes
killing, to get it.

One final thought on the misuse of words. Fully grown oak trees
are valuable things. Imagine that you had a contract for the
delivery of a dozen Oak trees to your sawmill, and the person to
whom you paid money for those trees showed up with a dozen
seedlings. Or better yet, a bag of Acorns. And then to add insult
to injury stated that under law that all three of these are the
same so that he kept the terms of the contract.

I have no problem with people wanting to give different things
the same legal protections. Peta, for example, wants to give
primates the same legal rights as people in many circumstances.
But they do not do this by telling the lie that primates are the
same as people. Even though evidence would show that, by many
measures, many primates are smarter than many people. This
argument is not about if a fetus should have the same rights as a
30 year old adult human. It is about the factual and logical lies
that the Pro life people cling to that a fetus is the same as an
adult human.

* True believing zealots, immune to logic and reason cite some
of the following

http://www.ccel.us/BiblePassages.html

to prove that a fetus is human. I would like for one of them to
take any of the statements on the above page and apply it to a
spontaneous abortion. Especially a late term spontaneous abortion.
That would surely make for an interesting paper. But these are the
same people who still insist that, according to the bible, some
day in the past, the sun stood still in the sky. This biblical
statement was used for hundreds of years to punish people who put
forth the idea that the earth actually moved about the relatively
stationary sun. It only took the Catholic church 400 years to
admit that error.

A little footnote here on the MISuse of the word proof or
prove. EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF. Evidence is evidence.

If you would like to comment, please send me an Email

Feel free to post links to this, or just take it, in its
entirety and put it in your site with attribution.

I could be wrong about any of this. I am open to logic and
facts that refute any of the above. Please be aware that name
calling is the technique used by people who have neither logic nor
facts on their side. Any editorial contributions are welcome.

A section on consequences. Has anyone thought that if an
abortion is some form of manslaughter, then every spontaneous
abortion must be investigated as a possible homicide? And should
we have some regulation that every woman who travels outside the
country must take a pregnancy test so that her other mommy, the
state, can be sure that she is not leaving the country to commit
murder?

Absolute Inspiration

rssll — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:41:21 -0500

I have an assignment in class; the topic is to be controversial, and I am prochoice, as well. I read your views, and I am gratefull that the freedoms we have today allows us (women) to be able to speak out.

I was recently invited to attend a community prayer vidual. surrounding a clinic, in our community. These are dear close friends that invited me. I kindly had to inform them that I do not support their views on this subject. Like you, I believe that it is not our duty to cast judgement, only provide guidance. We absolutly need the option of choice to remain available for those that feel this is their only choice. Otherwise, we could face a harsher and more devastating reality. Leaving the option open allows those women to make a decision. Their own decision with the availability of some guidance. Reverting back to old ways, back street abortions, will only create more back street murders, and loosing these women forever.

Respectful Dialog

Maria Niles — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:57:59 -0500

Meleata,

The goal here at BlogHer is to have respectful dialog. That doesn't mean we can't disagree or do not argue our points of view forcefully. However, shouting (all caps) and calling those who disagree with your point of view criminals is hardly respectful.

I hope that you will read the post and comments rather than simply react to the title and open yourself to understanding where many of us who are pro-choice are coming from and then come back and see if we can find some common ground.

And if you are commenting that I (and others) would consider it a great feat for society when women are supported, educated and empowered so that they never have unwanted pregnancies, their lives are never endangered and are never in a position where they feel they must consider abortion then yes, you are correct, I will be very proud when that day arrives.

Pro-Choice is not

miteegirl — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:06:44 -0500

Pro-Choice is not necessarily Pro-Abortion, Meleata. You can be Pro-Choice (legislatively) and Anti-Abortion (morally and in practice.)

I don't get it

Meleata — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:53:59 -0500

Why do you Pro Choice people make it out like you're accomplishing such a great feat for society? Why in the world are you proud of such a thing? I truly don't get it. IT'S MURDER. IT'S MURDER OF THE COMPLETELY INNOCENT. IT'S MURDER OF A HUMAN BEING.

No problem

Maria Niles — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:02:09 -0500

Glad you found this post useful. Thanks for your comments.

oops

loveXmorabora — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:38:44 -0500

i totally messed up. sorry about that!

i didn't scroll down enough

woah

loveXmorabora — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:35:50 -0500

i loved how into this you are

i'm researching stuff for a speech i have to do in class and its a pro-choice speech. your blog has been a life saver! it defiantly helped me in what i needed to say.

this was just too good.

again, thanks for posting something about this!!!!

woah

loveXmorabora — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:35:46 -0500

i loved how into this you are

i'm researching stuff for a speech i have to do in class and its a pro-choice speech. your blog has been a life saver! it defiantly helped me in what i needed to say.

this was just too good.

again, thanks for posting something about this!!!!

Thank you, Ree

Maria Niles — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:44:05 -0600

Thank you for your kind words and for sharing your thoughts and your heart.

You have expressed

Ree — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 11:54:15 -0600

You have expressed everything I could have said with eloquence and compassion. My own experiences with infertility, miscarriage, and an unwanted pregnancy have caused me to go back and forth on this issue. But I think, in my heart, I've always been Pro-Choice - and for the exact reasons that you state.

Until we're willing, as human beings, to care for children whose mothers either didn't want them, or couldn't care for them, or whose mothers died at the hands of a back-street abortionist rather than have ANOTHER child, we cannot, as a society, be the reason those children are unfed, unwashed, on the streets.

Thank you for the opportunity to share my own thoughts.

Thank you, Katherine

Maria Niles — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:55:22 -0600

Thank you for sharing your beliefs as well as your belief in love.

Why I'm Pro-Choice

Maria Niles — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:16:30 -0600

I am pro-choice. I cannot convince you to share my convictions if you do not, however I can explain to you why I hold this belief.

I offer my perspective not as an invitation for anyone to attempt to change my mind - you will not succeed - but in hope that, along with Shannon's post explaining why she is pro-life, we can have a civil discussion that moves us to a point at which we can find some common ground.

Personally

I am personally pro-choice because I am Christian. Yes, I'm outing myself as a believer. Those of us who are Christian but do not hold the what have become caricatured views of the so-called religious right often hesitate to share our faith. But I think it is important to share that being a Christian does not automatically mean that you oppose the right to abortion. In fact, the church into which I was baptized affirms that "it is the legal right of every woman to have a medically safe abortion."

I believe deeply that I have no authority whatsoever to judge the sin of any other person and to believe that I did would be blasphemous. Only God can judge our sins or innocence. The concept that a fetus is innocent is a moral one and not a legal one. I fully respect those who hold this view of life but my personal perspective tells me that it is not my place to judge relative moral innocence before or after birth. I also do not believe I am capable of divining God's will let alone creating laws that would seek to enforce that will.

Politically

When I was in my teens and early twenties, I was an idealistic young punk rocker who investigated theories of utopias and anarchy while also working in politics and studying government. As much as I love the idea that we could all just get along, I have come to believe that we as humans are not capable of existing without government and laws.

The laws of civil society do not exist to enforce morality and certainly not Biblical morality. Murder and abortion existed before the Bible as did laws prohibiting murder. Laws exist to regulate behavior in a way that allows societies to function. If there were no prohibition against murder society could not function if anyone could kill you for any reason without consequence. One need only look at nations which engage in and permit genocide to see that this is the case. Whether or not there is a God or what religion if any is the right one, if murder were unregulated, civil society could not exist.

Abortion does not disrupt civil society in the same way as murder. To believe that abortion must be regulated relies on a belief that a fetus is a person with all the rights and responsibilities of someone born. To grant a fetus that cannot exist outside the womb greater rights than the woman carrying the fetus is, in my estimation, fundamentally incompatible with the function of civil society.

Most importantly, making abortion illegal will not stop abortions. The disruption to society from criminalizing abortion I believe is much greater than protecting safe and legal abortion. If I were to choose to have an abortion it would not infringe upon your liberty or the function of society at all. If you were to deny me the right to choose an abortion it impinges upon my liberty and the society at large in a myriad of ways.

And to the argument that people should not be forced to be governed by laws which are in opposition to their moral and/or religious beliefs I would point out that we are all governed by some laws which do not comport with our personal moral beliefs. I am morally opposed to war and yet I voluntarily participate in a system of government to which I give my authority to decide to wage war and to which I pay taxes which support the waging of those wars. However, I also recognize that all societies, however small, develop methods to protect themselves from attack and I understand that there is common agreement therefore that a military should necessarily exist. Society cannot function if everyone is allowed to opt out of living under common laws based on individual beliefs.

Common Ground

My reasons for supporting choice are as personal, deeply held and, I believe correct, as believe those who feel the opposite. I respect the intelligent, compassionate women who have arrived at a different conclusion than I, and as I hope they will respect me. Any debates premised on what our intractable moral or political beliefs are will not move the discussion forward and will only result in each side digging their trenches deeper.

However, I believe there is common ground which we can all reach that will help us move forward towards a shared goal. Regardless of what anyone believes is the moral or legal right to abortion, I think most of us recognize that it is a choice that no woman wishes to be in a position to make.

What I would love to see is that we focus our energy towards loving women.

Loving them enough to ensure that every woman has sex only when they are fully capable of choosing to do so and fully capable of making choices regarding pregnancy. That no woman has sex because she lacks self esteem, because she thinks it is the only way she will be loved, because she was physically and emotionally abused and is acting out, because she is forced in any way.

That no woman does not use birth control because she cannot buy it, because she cannot afford it, because her partner is controlling and will not allow her to use it or refuses to use it himself. That no woman be forced to give birth when it would risk her life or prevent her from having wanted children in the future. That no woman be faced with the fear that raising a child when she is not equipped with the resources or support to do so will destroy her.

That we try our best to ensure that children are not brought unwanted into a life of poverty, neglect and abuse. That we recognize that most forms of birth control are not 100% perfect and that we support further development of safe, reliable, reversible forms of contraception. That we do not fool ourselves into believing that children born when they are desperately not wanted and because contraception fails are somehow likely to magically grow up healthy, happy and whole and be President someday when they are raised by a parent who tried to prevent their conception because they are aware that they were inadequately equipped to raise them. It could happen but realistically, probably will not.

That we recognize that our systems for adoption and foster care are not adequate and if we truly want to ensure that even those women who do not choose abortion and offer their children the hope of a better life through adoption we must work to fix those institutions.

The law will not stop abortions. Making abortion against the law merely changes the choice to whether or not a woman will risk her life and break the law. The law will never convince anyone of the morality of abortion but rather merely gives permission to us to collectively judge and punish a woman for making that choice and to make it more difficult and more risky to have an abortion.

Instead, let's face the realities of unwanted and non-viable pregnancy and work to prevent that rather than working to turn pregnant women into criminals. Let's work together to the best of our ability to eliminate poverty, to create opportunities for education and to support all women so they can choose to give birth from a place of being truly healthy, happy and free. We can work together in love towards the goal of not making abortion an issue and not demonizing, judging and lecturing either women faced with the choice or anyone on the other side of the divide from where we stand.

Additional Reading and Resources:

Behind the Abortion Decline:

These jurisdictions also help women avoid unintended pregnancies by making contraception widely available.

The lesson: prevention works. Restrictions on abortion serve mainly to hurt poor women by postponing abortions until later in pregnancy. While shifting social mores may change some people’s behavior, the best practical strategy for reducing abortions is to focus on helping women avoid unwanted pregnancies.

Sojurners a community led by Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It

The Network of Spiritual Progressives

"Evangelicals a Liberal Can Love" by Nicholas D. Kristof - including some thoughts on reaching common ground

BlogHer CE Suzanne Reisman has written movingly and incisively on why she is pro-choice, including her recent post "Why We Vote With Our Uteruses."

LiberalLucy posted here at BlogHer explaining why she is "Grateful For The Choice."

Roundups of the 2008 Blog for Choice Day from NARAL and feminist blogs.

Two articles from AlterNet on the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade:

Arguing, in part, for connecting men and women with non-judgmental support organizations
The global impact of U.S. reproductive rights policies