6 ms·

The terms aren't arbitrary, they're used and propagated deliberately to turn as social issue into a political one. Using a term like "pro-life" creates a false

by s1t5 6y ago

The terms aren't arbitrary, they're used and propagated deliberately to turn as social issue into a political one. Using a term like "pro-life" creates a false dichotomy which leads to the false and simplistic conclusion that if you oppose pro-life then you must be anti-life. > Why not just say pro-abortion, anti-abortion? Because almost no one is "pro-abortion". It's a horrible and traumatic experience to go through and no one is happy to have one. That doesn't mean that women shouldn't have the option to do it. That's why pro-choice works better - it's just more descriptive of the actual issue.

tarsinge 6y ago
The term "pro-life" may creates a false dichotomy when put in that way, but if you think at it as the crux of the argument not so much. Case in point you kind of miss it in your last sentence and have it in the opposite: if a foetus is a life (i.e. a person) from day one, then it follows women shouldn't have a choice (because it's not their body anymore, in that context, like a weirdness of nature that a different person with normal rights inhabits a mother's body). They are not saying it will lead to a happy experience either to raise that child, but that's an unfortunate consequence of the "life" argument, hence "life vs choice". Edit: But I agree it's not a good way to frame the debate, "Person at conception vs Person at X weeks/months" would be more relevant to each side position IMO.
- triceratops 6y ago
  The counter-argument I've heard to that is even if a fetus is a life (debatable), "pro-lifers" are requisitioning a person's body against their will to sustain that life. Which is inconsistent with what we as a society would do in any other similar situation. For example, organ donation. We don't even assume consent to use the organs of dead bodies, let alone force live donors to surrender their spare kidneys.
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    You could argue landlords should not be able to evict tenants willy nilly if they change their mind about the lease.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - triceratops 6y ago
      Isn't that already the case? You can't evict tenants in the middle of a lease if they have honored all the terms of the lease. It's a contract.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    To be more specific, this argument was popularized by Judith Jarvis Thomson in her essay "A Defense of Abortion". https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.h...
    - triceratops 6y ago
      Cool, I didn't know where this argument originated from. Thanks for the source.
  - gbrown 6y ago
    That’s why I like “anti-forced-birthing” more than “pro-choice”.
- Fargren 6y ago
  > if a foetus is a life (i.e. a person) from day one, then it follows women shouldn't have a choice This is not the case. Even if the foetus is a human person, body autonomy tells us that no person should be forced to give up their own bodily well being in ensure the survival of someone else. Let's say that a person needs a kidney or they will day, would it be OK to force the only compatible donor to donate his because he can survive without it? If not, how is it fine to force a woman to go through nine months of pregnancy? Pregnancy and birth can be harmful to the body, and even put the mother's life at risk. It's common to say that the "pro-life vs. pro-choice" debate is all about whether the foetus is a person of not, but that's a misdirect. You can resolve that question and still find yourself trying to solve essentially the trolley problem.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    > Let's say that a person needs a kidney or they will day, would it be OK to force the only compatible donor to donate his because he can survive without it? If not, how is it fine to force a woman to go through nine months of pregnancy? Thats a pretty terrible analogy. Getting pregnant is not something you cannot avoid. That would assume that people have no responsibility in their current condition.
    - Fargren 6y ago
      I come from a country were people are still often denied abortions after being raped, so maybe my perspective is a biased (though the laws say they should be allowed). But even in other cases, I assume if a person is looking for an abortion they didn't expect to get pregnant, so I can hardly say that they chose to get pregnant. If someone gets pregnant because of lack of education or faulty birth control products, I really find it hard to say they are entirely responsible for the pregnancy.
      - wolco 6y ago
        It is entirely their responsiblity. There is a reason why most societies/religions encourages only sex after marriage. To engage in sex before marriage then blame the birth control products or lack of an education doesn't really add up. The rape pregency is a different matter. Before safe abortions the mother had the baby and treated it as an innocent child. Some would be given up for adoption. Some societies force the rapist to pay. No society killed the baby when it was born.
- RobertoG 6y ago
  But "life" and "person" are two different things. Why not call themselves pro-person? I think it's because then you have to discuss when person-hood start. In general, "pro-life" people are not pro-life, they are pro-soul, but they know instinctively that's a debate they can't win, so they change the name. It's, in my opinion, a big, big hypocrisy.
- mcphage 6y ago
  > The term "pro-life" may creates a false dichotomy when put in that way, but if you think at it as the crux of the argument not so much. Even then, not really. Otherwise Pro-Life adherents would push policies that reduce the number of abortions overall—like better access to and education about birth control—over policies that don’t—like making abortions illegal. Instead, they demonstrate that their goal isn’t to actually reduce the number of abortions overall.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > if a foetus is a life (i.e. a person) from day one, then it follows women shouldn't have a choice Living people making unwanted intrusions into one’s body, even where one has previously consented, can generally be forcibly stopped from that intrusion. There are basically no circumstances where being alive itself gives someone the kind of claim on someone else’s body necessary to sustain a fetus. So, no, the conclusion you present does not follow from the assumption that the fetus is a living human person with all the rights and privileges usually associated with that status. It still requires assumption of novel, sui generis, privileges.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  I feel that these terms fail to represent the demographic of people who are against abortions, but also hate babies.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- jtbayly 6y ago
  > Person at conception vs Person at X weeks/months Except that some pro-choice advocates admit that it is a human life being killed and still insist it is good and necessary. That and most of the rest of the pro-choice activists would never accept being forced into making a determination on when they believe life begins. They don't care when life begins. They care about not restricting abortion. Edit: I should have read other comments here first. As you can see, many pro-choice people are perfectly willing to acknowledge that they are willing to allow abortion even though it is a person. In other words, actively killing your child if you don't want to support them.
asjw 6y ago
I am pro legal abortion I am also pro euthanasia Being in favour of something it doesn't mean you hope things will go south You support their existence exactly because if things go south it's better to have them I am not pro choice, I am anti anti abortists
- BrandoElFollito 6y ago
  This is exactly the comment I wanted to make. I am also pro education, education, education. So that there are no difficult decisions to make. I am happy to see that in my country (France) children having sex ed at school knew more or less everything already. When I asked my son how it went he said that there was one guy who was sniggering and girls jumped on him shaming him to death - telling that he will be a virgin his all life if he does not grow up etc.
dmos62 6y ago
> Because almost no one is "pro-abortion". It's a horrible and traumatic experience to go through and no one is happy to have one. That doesn't mean that women shouldn't have the option to do it. I am pro-abortion, because I understand that it's a traumatic experience, which nonetheless can be very desirable given some circumstances. If you're trying to side-step the fact that no-one ideally would have an abortion, you're just opening yourself up to counter-arguments attacking exactly that, and that's dumb, because you've detracted the debate from the true point (from a pro-abortion viewpoint) – sometimes it's a necessary sacrifice.
theelous3 6y ago
If you believe women should be able to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term, or not, you are pro-abortion. Lots of people are pro-abortion. Futhermore, lots of people recognise they are pro-abortion and are perfectly willing, if not encourage, the label. Maybe this is taboo in your upbringing and social circle but to make the claim that "almost no one" is pro-abortion is beyond wrong. Your local puritanical propaganda is winning, it would seem. I'm european. I see the conversation as explicitly pro-abortion and anti-abortion. Now and then the anti-abortionists try to americanize and call themselves pro-life but few buy it.

by s1t5 6y ago

tarsinge 6y ago

The term "pro-life" may creates a false dichotomy when put in that way, but if you think at it as the crux of the argument not so much. Case in point you kind of miss it in your last sentence and have it in the opposite: if a foetus is a life (i.e. a person) from day one, then it follows women shouldn't have a choice (because it's not their body anymore, in that context, like a weirdness of nature that a different person with normal rights inhabits a mother's body). They are not saying it will lead to a happy experience either to raise that child, but that's an unfortunate consequence of the "life" argument, hence "life vs choice". Edit: But I agree it's not a good way to frame the debate, "Person at conception vs Person at X weeks/months" would be more relevant to each side position IMO.

triceratops 6y ago
The counter-argument I've heard to that is even if a fetus is a life (debatable), "pro-lifers" are requisitioning a person's body against their will to sustain that life. Which is inconsistent with what we as a society would do in any other similar situation. For example, organ donation. We don't even assume consent to use the organs of dead bodies, let alone force live donors to surrender their spare kidneys.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  You could argue landlords should not be able to evict tenants willy nilly if they change their mind about the lease.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - triceratops 6y ago
    Isn't that already the case? You can't evict tenants in the middle of a lease if they have honored all the terms of the lease. It's a contract.
- int_19h 6y ago
  To be more specific, this argument was popularized by Judith Jarvis Thomson in her essay "A Defense of Abortion". https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.h...
  - triceratops 6y ago
    Cool, I didn't know where this argument originated from. Thanks for the source.
- gbrown 6y ago
  That’s why I like “anti-forced-birthing” more than “pro-choice”.
Fargren 6y ago
> if a foetus is a life (i.e. a person) from day one, then it follows women shouldn't have a choice This is not the case. Even if the foetus is a human person, body autonomy tells us that no person should be forced to give up their own bodily well being in ensure the survival of someone else. Let's say that a person needs a kidney or they will day, would it be OK to force the only compatible donor to donate his because he can survive without it? If not, how is it fine to force a woman to go through nine months of pregnancy? Pregnancy and birth can be harmful to the body, and even put the mother's life at risk. It's common to say that the "pro-life vs. pro-choice" debate is all about whether the foetus is a person of not, but that's a misdirect. You can resolve that question and still find yourself trying to solve essentially the trolley problem.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > Let's say that a person needs a kidney or they will day, would it be OK to force the only compatible donor to donate his because he can survive without it? If not, how is it fine to force a woman to go through nine months of pregnancy? Thats a pretty terrible analogy. Getting pregnant is not something you cannot avoid. That would assume that people have no responsibility in their current condition.
  - Fargren 6y ago
    I come from a country were people are still often denied abortions after being raped, so maybe my perspective is a biased (though the laws say they should be allowed). But even in other cases, I assume if a person is looking for an abortion they didn't expect to get pregnant, so I can hardly say that they chose to get pregnant. If someone gets pregnant because of lack of education or faulty birth control products, I really find it hard to say they are entirely responsible for the pregnancy.
    - wolco 6y ago
      It is entirely their responsiblity. There is a reason why most societies/religions encourages only sex after marriage. To engage in sex before marriage then blame the birth control products or lack of an education doesn't really add up. The rape pregency is a different matter. Before safe abortions the mother had the baby and treated it as an innocent child. Some would be given up for adoption. Some societies force the rapist to pay. No society killed the baby when it was born.
RobertoG 6y ago
But "life" and "person" are two different things. Why not call themselves pro-person? I think it's because then you have to discuss when person-hood start. In general, "pro-life" people are not pro-life, they are pro-soul, but they know instinctively that's a debate they can't win, so they change the name. It's, in my opinion, a big, big hypocrisy.
mcphage 6y ago
> The term "pro-life" may creates a false dichotomy when put in that way, but if you think at it as the crux of the argument not so much. Even then, not really. Otherwise Pro-Life adherents would push policies that reduce the number of abortions overall—like better access to and education about birth control—over policies that don’t—like making abortions illegal. Instead, they demonstrate that their goal isn’t to actually reduce the number of abortions overall.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> if a foetus is a life (i.e. a person) from day one, then it follows women shouldn't have a choice Living people making unwanted intrusions into one’s body, even where one has previously consented, can generally be forcibly stopped from that intrusion. There are basically no circumstances where being alive itself gives someone the kind of claim on someone else’s body necessary to sustain a fetus. So, no, the conclusion you present does not follow from the assumption that the fetus is a living human person with all the rights and privileges usually associated with that status. It still requires assumption of novel, sui generis, privileges.
StavrosK 6y ago
I feel that these terms fail to represent the demographic of people who are against abortions, but also hate babies.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
jtbayly 6y ago
> Person at conception vs Person at X weeks/months Except that some pro-choice advocates admit that it is a human life being killed and still insist it is good and necessary. That and most of the rest of the pro-choice activists would never accept being forced into making a determination on when they believe life begins. They don't care when life begins. They care about not restricting abortion. Edit: I should have read other comments here first. As you can see, many pro-choice people are perfectly willing to acknowledge that they are willing to allow abortion even though it is a person. In other words, actively killing your child if you don't want to support them.

asjw 6y ago

I am pro legal abortion I am also pro euthanasia Being in favour of something it doesn't mean you hope things will go south You support their existence exactly because if things go south it's better to have them I am not pro choice, I am anti anti abortists

BrandoElFollito 6y ago
This is exactly the comment I wanted to make. I am also pro education, education, education. So that there are no difficult decisions to make. I am happy to see that in my country (France) children having sex ed at school knew more or less everything already. When I asked my son how it went he said that there was one guy who was sniggering and girls jumped on him shaming him to death - telling that he will be a virgin his all life if he does not grow up etc.

dmos62 6y ago

> Because almost no one is "pro-abortion". It's a horrible and traumatic experience to go through and no one is happy to have one. That doesn't mean that women shouldn't have the option to do it. I am pro-abortion, because I understand that it's a traumatic experience, which nonetheless can be very desirable given some circumstances. If you're trying to side-step the fact that no-one ideally would have an abortion, you're just opening yourself up to counter-arguments attacking exactly that, and that's dumb, because you've detracted the debate from the true point (from a pro-abortion viewpoint) – sometimes it's a necessary sacrifice.

theelous3 6y ago

If you believe women should be able to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term, or not, you are pro-abortion. Lots of people are pro-abortion. Futhermore, lots of people recognise they are pro-abortion and are perfectly willing, if not encourage, the label. Maybe this is taboo in your upbringing and social circle but to make the claim that "almost no one" is pro-abortion is beyond wrong. Your local puritanical propaganda is winning, it would seem. I'm european. I see the conversation as explicitly pro-abortion and anti-abortion. Now and then the anti-abortionists try to americanize and call themselves pro-life but few buy it.